. 


WILD  ORANGES 


THE    WORKS    OF 
JOSEPH    HERGESHEIMER 

NOVELS 

THE  LAY  ANTHONY  [1914] 

MOUNTAIN  BLOOD   [1915] 

THE  THREE  BLACK  PENNYS    [1917] 

JAVA   HEAD   [1918] 

LINDA    CONDON    [1919] 

CYTHEREA    [1922] 

THE  BRIGHT   SHAWL   [In   preparation] 

SHORTER   STORIES 

WILD  ORANGES    [1918] 
TUBAL  CAIN   [1918] 
THE  DARK  FLEECE   [191  p.] 
THE  HAPPY  END  [1919] 

TRAVEL 

SAN   CRISTOBAL  DE   LA   HABANA    [1920] 


NEW   YORK:    ALFRED  A.  KNOPF 


WILD  ORANGES 


JOSEPH  HERGESHEIMER 


NEW  YORK 

ALFRED'A'KNOPF 

1922 


COPYRIGHT,  1918,  BY 
ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  INC. 


Published,  April,  1918,  in  a  volume  now  out  of  print, 
entitled  "Gold  and  Iron,"  and  then  reprinted  twice. 

First  published  separately,  March,  1922 


Bet  up,  electrotyped,  and  printed,  ty  the  Vail-Ballou  Co.,  Binghamton,  N.  F. 
Paper  supplied  lv  W.  F.  Etherington  A  Co.,  New  York,  K.  Y. 
Bound  ~by  the  Plimpton  Press,  Norwood,  Mass. 


MANUFACTURED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


TO 
GEORGE  HORACE  LORIMER 


528G3S 


WILD  ORANGES 


THE  ketch  drifted  into  the  serene  inclosure  of 
the  bay  as  silently  as  the  reflections  mov 
ing  over  the  mirrorlike  surface  of  the  wa 
ter.  Beyond  a  low  arm  of  land  that  hid  the  sea  the 
western  sky  was  a  single,  clear  yellow;  farther  on 
the  left  the  pale,  incalculably  old  limbs  of  cypress, 
their  roots  bare,  were  hung  with  gathering 
shadows  as  delicate  as  their  own  faint  foliage. 
The  stillness  was  emphasized  by  the  ceaseless  mur 
mur  of  the  waves  breaking  on  the  far,  seaward 
bars. 

John  Woolfolk  brought  the  ketch  up  where  he 
intended  to  anchor  and  called  to  the  stooping 
white-clad  figure  in  the  bow:  "Let  go!"  There 
was  an  answering  splash,  a  sudden  rasp  of  hawser, 
the  booms  swung  idle,  and  the  yacht  imperceptibly 
settled  into  her  berth.  The  wheel  turned  impo- 
tently;  and,  absent-minded,  John  Woolfolk  locked 
it.  He  dropped  his  long  form  on  a  carpet- 
covered  folding  chair  near  by.  He  was  tired. 
His  sailor,  Poul  Halvard,  moved  about  with  a 
noiseless  and  swift  efficiency;  he  rolled  and  cased 
the  jib,  and  then,  with  a  handful  of  canvas  stops, 
secured  and  covered  the  mainsail  and  proceeded  aft 

[9] 


WILD    ORANGES 

to  the  jigger.  Unlike  Woolfolk,  Halvard  was 
short — a  square  figure  with  a  smooth,  deep-tanned 
countenance,  colorless  and  steady,  pale  blue 
eyes.  His  mouth  closed  so  tightly  that  it  appeared 
immovable,  as  if  it  had  been  carved  from  some  ob 
durate  material  that  opened  for  the  necessities  of 
neither  speech  nor  sustenance. 

Tall  John  Woolfolk  was  darkly  tanned,  too,  and 
had  a  grey  gaze,  by  turns  sharply  focused  with 
bright  black  pupils  and  blankly  introspective.  He 
was  garbed  in  white  flannels,  with  bare  ankles  and 
sandals,  and  an  old,  collarless  silk  shirt,  with 
sleeves  rolled  back  on  virile  arms  incongruously  tat 
tooed  with  gauzy  green  cicadas. 

He  stayed  motionless  while  Halvard  put  the 
yacht  in  order  for  the  night.  The  day's  passage 
through  twisting  inland  waterways,  the  hazard  of 
the  tides  on  shifting  flats,  the  continual  concentra 
tion  on  details  at  once  trivial  and  highly  necessary, 
had  been  more  wearing  than  the  cyclone  the  ketch 
had  weathered  off  Barbuda  the  year  before. 
They  had  been  landbound  since  dawn;  and  all  day 
John  Woolfolk's  instinct  had  revolted  against  the 
fields  and  wooded  points,  turning  toward  the  open 
sea. 

Halvard  disappeared  into  the  cabin;  and,  soon 
after,  a  faint,  hot  air,  the  smell  of  scorched  metal, 
announced  the  lighting  of  the  vapor  stove,  the  prep 
arations  for  supper.  Not  a  breath  stirred  the  sur 
face  of  the  bay.  The  water,  as  transparently  clear 

[10] 


WILD    ORANGES 

as  the  hardly  darkened  air,  lay  like  a  great  amethyst 
clasped  by  its  dim  corals  and  the  arm  of  the  land. 
The  glossy  foliage  that,  with  the  exception  of  a 
small  silver  beach,  choked  the  shore  might  have 
been  stamped  from  metal.  It  was,  John  Woolfolk 
suddenly  thought,  amazingly  still.  The  atmos 
phere,  too,  was  peculiarly  heavy,  languorous.  It 
was  laden  with  the  scents  of  exotic,  flowering  trees; 
he  recognized  the  smooth,  heavy  odor  of  oleanders 
and  the  clearer  sweetness  of  orange  blossoms. 

He  was  idly  surprised  at  the  latter;  he  had  not 
known  that  orange  groves  had  been  planted  and 
survived  in  Georgia.  Woolfolk  gazed  more  at 
tentively  at  the  shore,  and  made  out,  in  back  of  the 
luxuriant  tangle,  the  broad  white  fagade  of  a  dwell 
ing.  A  pair  of  marine  glasses  lay  on  the  deck  at 
his  hand;  and,  adjusting  them,  he  surveyed  the  face 
of  a  distinguished  ruin.  The  windows  on  the 
stained  wall  were  broken  in — they  resembled  the 
empty  eyes  of  the  dead ;  storms  had  battered  loose  the 
neglected  roof,  leaving  a  corner  open  to  sun  and 
rain;  he  could  see  through  the  foliage  lower  down 
great  columns  fallen  about  a  sweeping  portico. 

The  house  was  deserted,  he  was  certain  of  that — 
the  melancholy  wreckage  of  a  vanished  and  res 
plendent  time.  Its  small  principality,  flourishing 
when  commerce  and  communication  had  gone  by 
water,  was  one  of  the  innumerable  victims  of  pro 
gress  and  of  the  concentration  of  effort  into  huge 
impersonalities.  He  thought  he  could  trace  other 


WILD    ORANGES 

even  more  complete  ruins,  but  his  interest  waned. 
He  laid  the  glasses  back  upon  the  deck.  The 
choked  bubble  of  boiling  water  sounded  from  the 
cabin,  mingled  with  the  irregular  sputter  of  cook 
ing  fat  and  the  clinking  of  plates  and  silver  as  Hal- 
vard  set  the  table.  Without,  the  light  was  fading 
swiftly;  the  wavering  cry  of  an  owl  quivered  from 
the  cypress  across  the  water,  and  the  western  sky 
changed  from  paler  yellow  to  green.  Woolfolk 
moved  abruptly,  and,  securing  a  bucket  to  the 
handle  of  which  a  short  rope  had  been  spliced  and 
finished  with  an  ornamental  Turk's-head,  he  swung 
it  overboard  and  brought  it  up  half  full.  In  the 
darkness  of  the  bucket  the  water  shone  with  a  faint 
phosphorescence.  Then  from  a  basin  he  lathered 
his  hands  with  a  thick,  pinkish  paste,  washed  his 
face,  and  started  toward  the  cabin. 

He  was  already  in  the  companionway  when, 
glancing  across  the  still  surface  of  the  bay,  he  saw 
a  swirl  moving  into  view  about  a  small  point.  He 
thought  at  first  that  it  was  a  fish,  but  the  next  mo 
ment  saw  the  white,  graceful  silhouette  of  an  arm. 
It  was  a  woman  swimming.  John  Woolfolk  could 
now  plainly  make  out  the  free,  solid  mass  of  her 
hair,  the  naked,  smoothly  turning  shoulder.  She 
was  swimming  with  deliberate  ease,  with  a  long, 
single  overarm  stroke;  and  it  was  evident  that  she 
had  not  seen  the  ketch.  Woolfolk  stood,  his  gaze 
level  with  the  cabin  top,  watching  her  assured  pro 
gress.  She  turned  again,  moving  out  from  the 

[12] 


WILD    ORANGES 

shore,  then  suddenly  stopped.     Now,  he  realized, 
she  saw  him. 

The  swimmer  hung  motionless  for  a  breath ;  then, 
with  a  strong,  sinuous  drive,  she  whirled  about  and 
made  swiftly  for  the  point  of  land.  She  was  visi 
ble  for  a  short  space,  low  in  the  water,  her  hair 
wavering  in  the  clear  flood,  and  then  disappeared 
abruptly  behind  the  point,  leaving  behind — a  last 
vanishing  trace  of  her  silent  passage — a  smooth, 
subsiding  wake  on  the  surface  of  the  bay. 

John  Woolfolk  mechanically  descended  the  three 
short  steps  to  the  cabin.  There  had  been  something 
extraordinary  in  the  woman's  brief  appearance  out 
of  the  odorous  tangle  of  the  shore,  with  its  ruined 
habitation.  It  had  caught  him  unprepared,  in  a 
moment  of  half  weary  relaxation,  and  his  imagina 
tion  responded  with  a  faint  question  to  which  it  had 
been  long  unaccustomed.  But  Halvard,  in  crisp 
white,  standing  behind  the  steaming  supper  viands, 
brought  his  thoughts  again  to  the  day's  familiar 
routine. 

The  cabin  was  divided  through  its  forward  half 
by  the  centerboard  casing,  and  against  it  a  swinging 
table  had  been  elevated,  an  immaculate  cover  laid, 
and  the  yacht's  china,  marked  in  cobalt  with  the 
name  Gar,  placed  in  a  polished  and  formal 
order.  Halvard's  service  from  the  stove  to  the 
table  was  as  silent  and  skillful  as  his  housing  of  the 
sails ;  he  replaced  the  hot  dishes  with  cold,  and  pro 
vided  a  glass  bowl  of  translucent  preserved  figs. 

[13] 


WILD    ORANGES 

Supper  at  an  end,  Woolfolk  rolled  a  cigarette  from 
shag  that  resembled  coarse  black  tea  and  returned 
to  the  deck.  Night  had  fallen  on  the  shore,  but  the 
water  still  held  a  pale  light;  in  the  east  the  sky  was 
filled  with  an  increasing,  cold  radiance.  It  was  the 
moon,  rising  swiftly  above  the  flat  land.  The 
moonlight  grew  in  intensity,  casting  inky  shadows 
of  the  spars  and  cordage  across  the  deck,  making 
the  light  in  the  cabin  a  reddish  blur  by  contrast. 
The  icy  flood  swept  over  the  land,  bringing  out  with 
a  new  emphasis  the  close,  glossy  foliage  and  broken 
facade — it  appeared  unreal,  portentous.  The  odors 
of  the  flowers,  of  the  orange  blossoms,  uncoiled  in 
heavy,  palpable  waves  across  the  water,  accom 
panied  by  the  owl's  fluctuating  cry.  The  sense  of 
imminence  increased,  of  a  genius  loci  unguessed 
and  troublous,  vaguely  threatening  in  the  perfumed 
dark. 


[14] 


II 


JOHN  WOOLFOLK  had  said  nothing  to  Hal- 
vard  of  the  woman  he  had  seen  swimming  in 
the  bay.  He  was  conscious  of  no  particular 
reason  for  remaining  silent  about  her;  but  the  thing 
had  become  invested  with  a  glamour  that,  he  felt, 
would  be  destroyed  by  commonplace  discussion.  He 
had  no  personal  interest  in  the  episode,  he  was  care 
ful  to  add.  Interests  of  that  sort,  serving  to  con 
nect  him  with  the  world,  with  society,  with  women, 
had  totally  disappeared  from  his  life.  He  rolled 
and  lighted  a  fresh  cigarette,  and  in  the  minute 
Drange  spurt  of  the  match  his  mouth  was  somber 
and  forbidding. 

The  unexpected  appearance  on  the  glassy  water 
had  merely  started  into  being  a  slight,  fanciful  cu 
riosity.  The  women  of  that  coast  did  not  commonly 
swim  at  dusk  in  their  bays ;  such  simplicity  obtained 
now  only  in  the  reaches  of  the  highest  civilization. 
There  were,  he  knew,  no  hunting  camps  here,  and 
:he  local  inhabitants  were  mere  sodden  squatters. 
A  chart  lay  in  its  flat  canvas  case  by  the  wheel; 
md,  in  the  crystal  flood  of  the  moon,  he  easily  re- 
imrmed  from  it  his  knowledge  of  the  yacht's  pos- 

[15] 


WILD    ORANGES 

ition.  Nothing  could  be  close  by  but  scattered  huts 
and  such  wreckage  as  that  looming  palely  above  the 
oleanders. 

Yet  a  woman  had  unquestionably  appeared 
swimming  from  behind  the  point  of  land  off  the 
bow  of  the  Gar.  The  women  native  to  the  locality, 
and  the  men,  too,  were  fanatical  in  the  avoidance 
of  any  unnecessary  exterior  application  of  water. 
His  thoughts  moved  in  a  monotonous  circle,  while 
the  enveloping  radiance  constantly  increased.  It 
became  as  light  as  a  species  of  unnatural  day,  where 
every  leaf  was  clearly  revealed  but  robbed  of  all 
color  and  familiar  meaning. 

He  grew  restless,  and  rose,  making  his  way 
forward  about  the  narrow  deck-space  outside 
the  cabin.  Halvard  was  seated  on  a  coil  of 
rope  beside  the  windlass  and  stood  erect  as  Wool- 
folk  approached.  The  sailor  was  smoking  a  short 
pipe,  and  the  bowl  made  a  crimson  spark  in  his 
thick,  powerful  hand.  John  Woolfolk  fingered 
the  wood  surface  of  the  windlass  bitts  and  found 
it  rough  and  gummy.  Halvard  said  instinctively: 

"I'd  better  start  scraping  the  mahogany  tomor 
row,  it's  getting  white." 

Woolfolk  nodded.  Halvard  was  a  good  man. 
He  had  the  valuable  quality  of  commonly  anticipat 
ing  spoken  desires.  He  was  a  Norwegian,  out  of 
the  Lofoden  Islands,  where  sailors  are  surpassingly 
schooled  in  the  Arctic  seas.  Poul  Halvard,  so  far  as 
Woolfolk  could  discover,  was  impervious  to  cold,  to 

[16] 


WILD    ORANGES 

fatigue,  to  the  insidious  whispering  of  mere  flesh. 
He  was  a  man  without  temptation,  with  an  untrou 
bled  allegiance  to  a  duty  that  involved  an  endless, 
exacting  labor;  and  for  those  reasons  he  was  aus 
tere,  withdrawn  from  the  community  of  more  frag 
ile  and  sympathetic  natures.  At  times  his  in 
flexible  integrity  oppressed  John  Woolfolk.  Hal- 
vard,  he  thought,  was  a  difficult  man  to  live  up  to. 

He  turned  and  absently  surveyed  the  land.  His 
restlessness  increased.  He  felt  a  strong  desire  for 
a  larger  freedom  of  space  than  that  offered  by  the 
Gar,  and  it  occurred  to  him  that  he  might  go  ashore 
in  the  tender.  He  moved  aft  with  this  idea  grow 
ing  to  a  determination.  In  the  cabin,  on  the  shelf 
above  the  berths  built  against  the  sides  of  the  ketch, 
he  found  an  old  blue  flannel  coat,  with  crossed 
squash  rackets  and  a  monogram  embroidered  in 
yellow  on  the  breast  pocket.  Slipping  it  on,  he 
dropped  over  the  stern  of  the  tender. 

Halvard  came  instantly  aft,  but  Woolfolk  de 
clined  the  mutely  offered  service.  The  oars  made 
a  silken  swish  in  the  still  bay  as  he  pulled  away  from 
the  yacht.  The  latter's  riding  light,  swung  on  the 
forestay,  hung  without  a  quiver,  like  a  fixed  yellow 
star.  He  looked  once  over  his  shoulder,  and  then 
the  bow  of  the  tender  ran  with  a  soft  shock  upon  the 
beach.  Woolfolk  bedded  the  anchor  in  the  sand 
and  then  stood  gazing  curiously  before  him. 

On  his  right  a  thicket  of  oleanders  drenched  the 
air  with  the  perfume  of  their  heavy  poisonous 

[17] 


WILD    ORANGES 

flowering,  and  behind  them  a  rough  clearing  of  saw 
grass  swept  up  to  the  debris  of  the  fallen  portico. 
To  the  left,  beyond  the  black  hole  of  a  decaying 
well,  rose  the  walls  of  a  second  brick  building, 
smaller  than  the  dwelling.  A  few  shreds  of  rotten 
porch  clung  to  its  face;  and  the  moonlight,  pouring 
through  a  break  above,  fell  in  a  livid  bar  across  the 
obscurity  of  a  high  single  chamber. 

Between  the  crumbling  piles  there  was  the  faint 
trace  of  a  footway,  and  Woolfolk  advance  to  where, 
inside  a  dilapidated  sheltering  fence,  he  came  upon 
a  dark,  compact  mass  of  trees  and  smelled  the  in 
creasing  sweetness  of  orange  blossoms.  He  struck 
the  remains  of  a  board  path,  and  progressed  with  the 
cold,  waxen  leaves  of  the  orange  trees  brushing  his 
face.  There  was,  he  saw  in  the  grey  brightness, 
ripe  fruit  among  the  branches,  and  he  mechani 
cally  picked  an  orange  and  then  another.  They 
were  small  but  heavy,  and  had  fine  skins. 

He  tore  one  open  and  put  a  section  in  his  mouth. 
It  was  at  first  surprisingly  bitter,  and  he  in 
voluntarily  flung  away  what  remained  in  his  hand. 
But  after  a  moment  he  found  that  the  oranges 
possessed  a  pungency  and  zestful  flavor  that  he  had 
tasted  in  no  others.  Then  he  saw,  directly  before 
him,  a  pale,  rectangular  light  which  he  recognized 
as  the  opened  door  of  a  habitation. 


[18] 


Ill 


HE  advanced  more  slowly,  and  a  low,  ir 
regular  house  detached  itself  from  the 
tangled  growth  pressing  upon  it  from  all 
sides.  The  doorway,  dimly  lighted  by  an  invisible 
lamp  from  within,  was  now  near  by;  and  John 
Woolfolk  saw  a  shape  cross  it,  so  swiftly  furtive 
that  it  was  gone  before  he  realized  that  a  man  had 
vanished  into  the  hall.  There  was  a  second  stir  on 
the  small  covered  portico,  and  the  slender,  white- 
clad  figure  of  a  woman  moved  uncertainly  forward. 
He  stopped  just  at  the  moment  in  which  a  low,  clear 
voice  demanded:  "What  do  you  want?" 

The  question  was  directly  put,  and  yet  the  tone 
held  an  inexplicably  acute  apprehension.  The 
woman's  voice  bore  a  delicate,  bell-like  shiver  of 
fear. 

"Nothing,"  he  hastened  to  assure  her.  "When  I 
came  ashore  I  thought  no  one  was  living  here." 

"You're  from  the  white  boat  that  sailed  in  at 
sunset?" 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  "and  I  am  returning 
immediately." 

"It  was  like  magic ! "  she  continued.  "Suddenly, 
without  a  sound,  you  were  anchored  in  the  bay." 

[19] 


WILD    ORANGES 

Even  this  quiet  statement  bore  the  shadowy  alarm. 
John  Woolfolk  realized  that  it  had  not  been  caused 
by  his  abrupt  appearance ;  the  faint  accent  of  dread 
was  fixed  in  the  illusive  form  before  him. 

"I  have  robbed  you  too,"  he  continued  in  a 
lighter  tone.  "Your  oranges  are  in  my  pocket." 

"You  won't  like  them,"  she  returned  indirectly; 
"they've  run  wild.  We  can't  sell  them." 

"They  have  a  distinct  flavor  of  their  own,"  he 
assured  her.  "I  should  be  glad  to  have  some  on 
the  Gar." 

"All  you  want." 

"My  man  will  get  them  and  pay  you." 

"Please  don't "     She  stopped  abruptly,  as  if 

a  sudden  consideration  had  interrupted  a  liberal 
courtesy.  When  she  spoke  again  the  apprehension, 
Woolfolk  thought,  had  increased  to  palpable  fright. 
"We  would  charge  you  very  little,"  she  said  finally. 
"Nicholas  attends  to  that." 

Silence  fell  upon  them.  She  stood  with  her  hand 
resting  lightly  against  an  upright  support,  coldly 
revealed  by  the  moon.  John  Woolfolk  saw  that, 
although  slight,  her  body  was  delicately  full,  and 
that  her  shoulders  held  a  droop  which  somehow 
resembled  the  shadow  on  her  voice.  She  bore  an 
unmistakable  refinement  of  being,  strange  in  that 
locality  of  meager  humanity.  Her  speech  totally 
lacked  the  unintelligible,  loose  slurring  of  the 
natives. 

"Won't  you  sit  down,"  she  at  last  broke  the 
[20] 


WILD    ORANGES 

silence.  "My  father  was  here  when  you  came  up, 
but  he  went  in.  Strangers  disturb  him." 

Woolfolk  moved  to  the  portico,  elevated  above 
the  ground,  where  he  found  a  momentary  place. 
The  woman  sank  back  into  a  low  chair.  The  still 
ness  gathered  about  them  once  more,  and  he 
mechanically  rolled  a  cigarette.  Her  white  dress, 
although  simply  and  rudely  made,  gained  dis 
tinction  from  her  free,  graceful  lines;  her  feet,  in 
black,  heelless  slippers,  were  narrow  and  sharply 
cut.  He  saw  that  her  countenance  bore  an  even 
pallor  on  which  her  eyes  made  shadows  like  those 
on  marble. 

These  details,  unremarkable  in  themselves,  were 
charged  with  a  peculiar  intensity.  John  Woolfolk, 
who  long  ago  had  put  such  considerations  from  his 
existence,  was  yet  clearly  conscious  of  the  disturbing 
quality  of  her  person.  She  possessed  the  inde 
finable  property  of  charm.  Such  women,  he  knew, 
stirred  life  profoundly,  reanimating  it  with  ex 
traordinary  efforts  and  desires.  Their  mere  pas 
sage,  the  pressure  of  their  fingers,  were  more  imper 
ative  than  the  life  service  of  others;  the  flutter  of 
their  breath  could  be  more  tyrannical  that  the  most 
poignant  memories  and  vows. 

John  Woolfolk  thought  these  things  in  a  manner 
absolutely  detached.  They  touched  him  at  no 
point.  Nevertheless,  the  faint  curiosity  stirred 
within  him  remained.  The  house  unexpectedly 
inhabited  behind  the  ruined  f  agade  on  the  water,  the 

[21] 


WILD    ORANGES 

magnetic  woman  with  the  echo  of  apprehension  in 
her  cultivated  voice,  the  parent,  so  easily  disturbed, 
even  the  mere  name  "Nicholas,"  all  held  a  marked 
potentiality  of  emotion;  they  were  set  in  an  almost 
hysterical  key. 

He  was  suddenly  conscious  of  the  odorous 
pressure  of  the  flowering  trees,  of  the  orange 
blossoms  and  the  oleanders.  It  was  stifling.  He 
felt  that  he  must  escape  at  once,  from  all  the  cloying 
and  insidious  scents  of  the  earth,  to  the  open  and 
sterile  sea.  The  thick  tangle  in  the  colorless  light 
of  the  moon,  the  dimmer  portico  with  its  enigmatic 
figure,  were  a  cunning  essence  of  the  existence  from 
which  he  had  fled.  Life's  traps  were  set  with  just 
such  treacheries — perfume  and  mystery  and  the 
veiled  lure  of  sex. 

He  rose  with  an  uncouth  abruptness,  a  meager 
commonplace,  and  hurried  over  the  path  to  the 
beach,  toward  the  refuge,  the  release,  of  the  Gar. 

John  Woolfolk  woke  at  dawn.  A  thin,  bluish 
light  filled  the  cabin;  above,  Halvard  was  washing 
the  deck.  The  latter  was  vigorously  swabbing  the 
cockpit  when  Woolfolk  appeared,  but  he  paused. 

"Perhaps,"  the  sailor  said,  "you  will  stay  here 
for  a  day  or  two.  I'd  like  to  unship  the  propeller, 
and  there's  the  scraping.  It's  a  good  anchorage." 

"We're  moving  on  south,"  Woolfolk  replied,  stat 
ing  the  determination  with  which  he -had  retired. 
Then  the  full  sense  of  Halvard's  words  penetrated 

[22] 


WILD    ORANGES 

his  waking  mind.  The  propeller,  he  knew,  had  not 
opened  properly  for  a  week;  and  the  anchorage  was 
undoubtedly  good.  This  was  the  last  place,  be 
fore  entering  the  Florida  passes,  for  whatever  minor 
adjustments  were  necessary. 

The  matted  shore,  flushed  with  the  rising  sun, 
was  starred  with  white  and  deep  pink  blooms;  a 
ray  gilded  the  blank  wall  of  the  deserted  mansion. 
The  scent  of  the  orange  blossoms  was  not  so  insist 
ent  as  it  had  been  on  the  previous  evening.  The 
land  appeared  normal ;  it  exhibited  none  of  the  dis 
turbing  influence  of  which  he  had  been  first  con 
scious.  Last  night's  mood  seemed  absurd. 

"You  are  quite  right,"  he  altered  his  pronounce 
ment;  "we'll  put  the  Gar  in  order  here.  People 
are  living  behind  the  grove,  and  there'll  be  water." 

He  had,  for  breakfast,  oranges  brought  down  the 
coast,  and  he  was  surprised  at  their  sudden  insip 
idity.  They  were  little  better  than  faintly  sweet 
ened  water.  He  turned  and  in  the  pocket  of  his 
flannel  coat  found  one  of  those  he  had  picked  the 
night  before.  It  was  as  keen  as  a  knife;  the  pecu 
liar  aroma  had,  without  doubt,  robbed  him  of  all 
desire  for  the  cultivated  oranges  of  commerce. 

Halvard  was  in  the  tender,  under  the  stern  of  the 
ketch,  when  it  occurred  to  John  Woolfolk  that  it 
would  be  wise  to  go  ashore  and  establish  his  asser 
tion  of  an  adequate  water  supply.  He  explained 
this  briefly  to  the  sailor,  who  put  him  on  the  small 

[23] 


WILD    ORANGES 

shingle  of  sand.  There  he  turned  to  the  right, 
moving  idly  in  a  direction  away  from  that  he  had 
taken  before. 

He  crossed  the  corner  of  the  demolished  abode, 
made  his  way  through  a  press  of  sere  cabbage 
palmettos,  and  emerged  suddenly  on  the  blinding 
expanse  of  the  sea.  The  limpid  water  lay  in  a 
bright  rim  over  corrugated  and  pitted  rock, 
where  shallow  ultramarine  pools  spread  gardens  of 
sulphur-yellow  and  rose  anemones.  The  land 
curved  in  upon  the  left;  a  ruined  landing  extended 
over  the  placid  tide,  and,  seated  there  with  her  back 
toward  him,  a  woman  was  fishing. 

It  was,  he  saw  immediately,  the  woman  of  the 
portico.  At  the  moment  of  recognition  she  turned, 
and  after  a  brief  inspection,  slowly  waved  her  hand. 
He  approached,  crossing  the  openings  in  the  preca 
rious  boarding  of  the  landing,  until  he  stood  over 
her.  She  said: 

"There's  an  old  sheepshead  under  here  I've  been 
after  for  a  year.  If  you'll  be  very  still  you  can 
see  him." 

She  turned  her  face  up  to  him,  and  he  saw  that 
her  cheeks  were  without  trace  of  color.  At  the 
same  time  he  reaffirmed  all  that  he  felt  before  with 
regard  to  the  potent  quality  of  her  being.  She  had 
a  lustrous  mass  of  warm  brown  hair  twisted  into 
a  loose  knot  that  had  slid  forward  over  a  broad, 
low  brow;  a  pointed  chin;  and  pale,  disturbing 
lips.  But  her  eyes  were  her  most  notable  feature 

[24] 


WILD    ORANGES 

—they  were  widely  opened  and  extraordinary  in 
color;  the  only  similitude  that  occurred  to  John 
Woolfolk  was  the  grey  greenness  of  olive  leaves. 
In  them  he  felt  the  same  foreboding  that  had  shad 
owed  her  voice.  The  fleet  passage  of  her  gaze  left 
an  indelible  impression  of  an  expectancy  that  was 
at  once  a  dread  and  a  strangely  youthful  candor. 
She  was,  he  thought,  about  thirty. 

She  wore  now  a  russet  skirt  of  thin,  coarse  tex 
ture  that,  like  the  dress  of  the  evening,  took  a  slim 
grace  from  her  fine  body,  and  a  white  waist,  frayed 
from  many  washings,  open  upon  her  smooth,  round 
throat. 

"He's  usually  by  this  post,"  she  continued,  point 
ing  down  through  the  clear  gloom  of  the  water. 

Woolfolk  lowered  himself  to  a  position  at  her 
side,  his  gaze  following  her  direction.  There, 
after  a  moment,  he  distinguished  the  sheepshead, 
barred  in  black  and  white,  wavering  about  the  pil 
ing.  His  companion  was  fishing  with  a  short, 
heavy  rod  from  which  time  had  dissolved  the  var 
nish,  an  ineffectual  brass  reel  that  complained 
shrilly  whenever  the  lead  was  raised  or  lowered, 
and  a  thick,  freely-knotted  line. 

"You  should  have  a  leader,"  he  told  her.  "The 
old  gentleman  can  see  your  line  too  plainly." 

There  was  a  sharp  pull,  she  rapidly  turned  the 
handle  of  the  protesting  reel,  and  drew  up  a  gasp 
ing,  bony  fish  with  extended  red  wings. 

"Another  robin!"  she  cried  tragically.     "This 
[25] 


WILD    ORANGES 

is  getting  serious.  Dinner,"  she  informed  him, 
"and  not  sport,  is  my  object." 

He  looked  out  to  where  a  channel  made  a  deep 
blue  stain  through  the  paler  cerulean  of  the  sea. 
The  tide,  he  saw  from  the  piling,  was  low. 

"There  should  be  a  rockfish  in  the  pass,"  he 
pronounced. 

"What  good  if  there  is?"  she  returned.  "I 
couldn't  possibly  throw  out  there.  And  if  I  could, 
why  disturb  a  rock  with  this?"  She  shook  the 
short  awkward  rod,  the  knotted  line. 

He  privately  acknowledged  the  palpable  truth  of 
her  objections,  and  rose. 

"I've  some  fishing  things  on  the  ketch,"  he  said, 
moving  away.  He  blew  shrilly  on  a  whistle  from 
the  beach,  and  Halvard  dropped  over  the  Gar's 
side  into  the  tender. 

Woolfolk  was  soon  back  on  the  wharf,  stripping 
the  canvas  cover  from  the  long  cane  tip  of  a  fish 
ing  rod  brilliantly  wound  with  green  and  vermilion, 
and  fitting  it  into  a  dark,  silver-capped  butt.  He 
locked  a  capacious  reel  into  place,  and,  drawing  a 
thin  line  through  agate  guides,  attached  a  glistening 
steel  leader  and  chained  hook.  Then,  adding  a 
freely  swinging  lead,  he  picked  up  the  small  mullet 
that  lay  by  his  companion. 

"Does  that  have  to  go?"  she  demanded.  "It's 
such  a  slim  chance,  and  it  is  my  only  mullet." 

He  ruthlessly  sliced  a  piece  from  the  silvery  side ; 
and,  rising  and  switching  his  reel's  gear,  he  cast. 

[26] 


WILD    ORANGES 

The  lead  swung  far  out  across  the  water  and  fell 
on  the  farther  side  of  the  channel. 

"But  that's  dazzling!"  she  exclaimed;  "as 
though  you  had  shot  it  out  of  a  gun." 

He  tightened  the  line,  and  sat  with  the  rod  rest 
ing  in  a  leather  socket  fastened  to  his  belt. 

"Now,"  she  stated,  "we  will  watch  at  the  vain 
sacrifice  of  an  only  mullet." 

The  day  was  superb,  the  sky  sparkled  like  a  great 
blue  sun;  schools  of  young  mangrove  snappers 
swept  through  the  pellucid  water.  The  woman 
said: 

"Where  did  you  come  from  and  where  are  you 
going?" 

"Cape  Cod,"  he  replied;  "and  I  am  going  to  the 
Guianas." 

"Isn't  that  South  America?"  she  queried.  "I've 
traveled  far — on  maps.  Guiana,"  she  repeated  the 
name  softly.  For  a  moment  the  faint  dread  in  her 
voice  changed  to  longing.  "I  think  I  know  all  the 
beautiful  names  of  places  on  the  earth,"  she  con 
tinued:  "Tarragona  and  Seriphos  and  Cam 
bodia." 

"Some  of  them  you  have  seen?" 

"None,"  she  answered  simply.  "I  was  born 
here,  in  the  house  you  know,  and  I  have  never  been 
fifty  miles  away." 

This,  he  told  himself,  was  incredible.  The  mys 
tery  that  surrounded  her  deepened,  stirring  more 
strongly  his  impersonal  curiosity. 

[27] 


WILD    ORANGES 

"You  are  surprised,"  she  added;  "it's  mad,  but 
true.  There — there  is  a  reason."  She  stopped 
abruptly,  and,  neglecting  her  fishing  rod,  sat  with 
her  hands  clasped  about  slim  knees.  She  gazed 
at  him  slowly,  and  he  was  impressed  once  more  by 
the  remarkable  quality  of  her  eyes,  grey-green  like 
olive  leaves  and  strangely  young.  The  momen 
tary  interest  created  in  her  by  romantic  and  far 
names  faded,  gave  place  to  the  familiar  trace  of  fear. 
In  the  long  past  he  would  have  responded  immedi 
ately  to  the  appeal  of  her  pale,  magnetic  counte 
nance.  .  .  .  He  had  broken  all  connection  with  soci 
ety,  with 

There  was  a  sudden,  impressive  jerk  at  his  line, 
the  rod  instantly  assumed  the  shape  of  a  bent  bow, 
and,  as  he  rose,  the  reel  spindle  was  lost  in  a  grey 
blur  and  the  line  streaked  out  through  the  dipping 
tip.  His  companion  hung  breathless  at  his 
shoulder. 

"He'll  take  all  your  line,"  she  lamented  as 
the  fish  continued  his  straight,  outward  course, 
while  Woolfolk  kept  an  even  pressure  on  the 
rod. 

"A  hundred  yards,"  he  announced  as  he  felt  a 
threaded  mark  wheel  from  under  his  thumb. 
Then:  "A  hundred  and  fifty.  I'm  afraid  it's  a 
shark."  As  he  spoke  the  fish  leaped  clear  of  the 
water,  a  spot  of  molten  silver,  and  fell  back  in  a 
sparkling  blue  spray.  "It's  a  rock,"  he  added. 
He  stopped  the  run  momentarily;  the  rod  bent  per- 

[28] 


WILD    ORANGES 

ilously  double,  but  the  fish  halted.  Woolfolk  reeled 
in  smoothly,  but  another  rush  followed,  as  strong 
as  the  first.  A  long,  equal  struggle  ensued,  the  thin 
line  was  drawn  as  rigid  as  metal,  the  rod  quivered 
and  arched.  Once  the  rockfish  was  close  enough 
to  be  clearly  distinguishable — strongly  built,  heavy- 
shouldered,  with  black  stripes  drawn  from  gills  to 
tail.  But  he  was  off  again  with  a  short,  blunder 
ing  rush. 

"If  you  will  hold  the  rod,"  Woolfolk  directed 
his  companion,  "I'll  gaff  him."  She  took  the  rod 
while  he  bent  over  the  wharf's  side.  The  fish, 
on  the  surface  of  the  water,  half  turned;  and,  strik 
ing  the  gaff  through  a  gill,  Woolfolk  swung  him 
up  on  the  boarding. 

"There,"  he  pronounced,  "are  several  dinners. 
I'll  carry  him  to  your  kitchen." 

"Nicholas  would  do  it,  but  he's  away,"  she  told 
him;  "and  my  father  is  not  strong  enough.  That's 
a  leviathan." 

John  Woolfolk  placed  a  handle  through  the  rock- 
fish's  gills,  and,  carrying  it  with  an  obvious  effort, 
he  followed  her  over  a  narrow,  trampled  path 
through  the  rasped  palmettos.  They  approached 
the  dwelling  from  behind  the  orange  grove;  and, 
coming  suddenly  to  the  porch,  surprised  an  incred 
ibly  thin,  grey  man  in  the  act  of  lighting  a  small 
stone  pipe  with  a  reed  stem.  He  was  sitting,  but, 
seeing  Woolfolk,  he  started  sharply  to  his  feet,  and 
the  pipe  fell,  shattering  the  bowl. 

[29] 


WILD    ORANGES 

"My  father,"  the  woman  pronounced:  "Lich- 
field  Stope." 

"Millie,"  he  stuttered  painfully,  "you  know — I 
— strangers — " 

John  Woolfolk  thought,  as  he  presented  himself, 
that  he  had  never  before  seen  such  an  immaterial 
living  figure.  Lichfield  Stope  was  like  the  shadow 
of  a  man  draped  with  unsubstantial,  dusty  linen. 
Into  his  waxen  face  beat  a  pale  infusion  of  blood, 
as  if  a  diluted  wine  had  been  poured  into  a  semi- 
opaque  goblet;  his  sunken  lips  puffed  out  and  col 
lapsed;  his  fingers,  dust-colored  like  his  garb, 
opened  and  shut  with  a  rapid,  mechanical  rigidity. 

"Father,"  Millie  Stope  remonstrated,  "you  must 
manage  yourself  better.  You  know  I  wouldn't 
bring  any  one  to  the  house  who  would  hurt  us. 
And  see — we  are  fetching  you  a  splendid  rockfish." 

The  older  man  made  a  convulsive  effort  to  regain 
his  composure. 

"Ah,  yes,"  he  muttered;  "just  so." 

The  flush  receded  from  his  indeterminate  coun 
tenance.  Woolfolk  saw  that  he  had  a  goatee  laid 
like  a  wasted  yellow  finger  on  his  chin,  and  that 
his  hands  hung  on  wrists  like  twisted  copper  wires 
from  circular  cuffs  fastened  with  large  mosaic  but 
tons. 

"We  are  alone  here,"  he  proceeded  in  a  fluc 
tuating  voice,  the  voice  of  a  shadow;  "the  man  is 

away.  My  daughter — I "  He  grew  inaud- 

[30] 


WILD    ORANGES 

ible,  although  his  lips  maintained  a  faint  move 
ment. 

The  fear  that  lurked  illusively  in  the  daughter 
was  in  the  parent  magnified  to  an  appalling  panic, 
an  instinctive,  acute  agony  that  had  crushed  every 
thing  but  a  thin,  tormented  spark  of  life.  He 
passed  his  hand  over  a  brow  as  dry  as  the  spongy 
limbs  of  the  cypress,  brushing  a  scant  lock  like 
dead,  bleached  moss. 

"The  fish,"  he  pronounced;  "yes  .  .  .  acceptable." 

"If  you  will  carry  it  back  for  me,"  Millie  Stope 
requested;  "we  have  no  ice;  I  must  put  it  in  water." 
He  followed  her  about  a  bay  window  with  orna 
mental  fretting  that  bore  the  shreds  of  old,  varie 
gated  paint.  He  could  see,  amid  an  incongruous 
wreckage  within,  a  dismantled  billiard  table,  its 
torn  cloth  faintly  green  beneath  a  film  of  dust. 
They  turned  and  arrived  at  the  kitchen  door. 
"There,  please."  She  indicated  a  bench  on  the 
outside  wall,  and  he  deposited  his  burden. 

"You  have  been  very  nice,"  she  told  him,  making 
her  phrase  less  commonplace  by  a  glance  of  her 
wide,  appealing  eyes.  "Now,  I  suppose,  you  will 
go  on  across  the  world?" 

"Not  tonight,"  he  replied  distantly. 

"Perhaps,  then,  you  will  come  ashore  again. 
We  see  so  few  people.  My  father  would  be  bene 
fited.  It  was  only  at  first,  so  suddenly — he  was 
startled." 

[31] 


WILD    ORANGES 

"There  is  a  great  deal  to  do  on  the  ketch,"  he 
replied  indirectly,  maintaining  his  retreat  from  the 
slightest  advance  of  life.  "I  came  ashore  to  dis 
cover  if  you  had  a  large  water  supply  and  if  I  might 
fill  my  casks." 

"Rain  water,"  she  informed  him;  "the  cistern  is 
full." 

"Then  I'll  send  Halvard  to  you."  He  with 
drew  a  step,  but  paused  at  the  incivility  of  his  leav 
ing. 

A  sudden  weariness  had  settled  over  the  shoul 
ders  of  Millie  Stope;  she  appeared  young  and  very 
white.  Woolfolk  was  acutely  conscious  of  her 
utter  isolation  with  the  shivering  figure  on  the 
porch,  the  unmaterialized  Nicholas.  She  had  deli 
cate  hands. 

"Good-by,"  he  said,  bowing  formally.  "And 
thank  you  for  the  fishing." 

He  whistled  sharply  for  the  tender. 


[32] 


IV 


THROUGHOUT  the  afternoon,  with  a  trian 
gular  scraping  iron,  he  assisted  Halvard  in 
removing  the  whitened  varnish  from  the 
yacht's  mahogany.  They  worked  silently,  with 
only  the  shrill  note  of  the  edges  drawing  across  the 
wood,  while  the  westering  sun  plunged  its  diagonal 
rays  far  into  the  transparent  depths  of  the  bay. 
The  Gar  floated  motionless  on  water  like  a  pale  eve 
ning  over  purple  and  silver  flowers  threaded  by 
fish  painted  the  vermilion  and  green  of  parrakeets. 
Inshore  the  pallid  cypresses  seemed,  as  John  Wool- 
folk  watched  them,  to  twist  in  febrile  pain.  With 
the  waning  of  day  the  land  took  on  its  air  of  un 
healthy  mystery;  the  mingled,  heavy  scents  floated 
out  in  a  sickly  tide;  the  ruined  fagade  glimmered 
in  the  half  light. 

Woolfolk's  thoughts  turned  back  to  the  woman 
living  in  the  miasma  of  perfume  and  secret  fear. 
He  heard  again  her  wistful  voice  pronounce  the 
names  of  far  places,  of  Tarragona  and  Seriphos,  in 
vesting  them  with  the  accent  of  an  intense  hopeless 
desire.  He  thought  of  the  inexplicable  place  of  her 
birth  and  of  the  riven,  unsubstantial  figure  of  the 
man  with  the  blood  pulsing  into  his  ocherous  face. 

[33] 


WILD    ORANGES 

Some  old,  profound  error  or  calamity  had  laid  its 
blight  upon  him,  he  was  certain ;  but  the  most  lam 
entable  inheritance  was  not  sufficient  to  account  for 
the  acute  apprehension  in  his  daughter's  tones. 
This  was  different  in  kind  from  the  spiritual  col 
lapse  of  the  aging  man.  It  was  actual,  he  realized 
that;  proceeding — in  part  at  least — from  without. 

He  wondered,  scraping  with  difficulty  the  under- 
turning  of  a  cathead,  if  whatever  dark  tide  was  cen 
tered  above  her  would,  perhaps,  descend  through 
the  oleander-scented  night  and  stifle  her  in  the  stag 
nant  dwelling.  He  had  a  swift,  vividly  complete 
vision  of  the  old  man  face  down  upon  the  floor  in 
a  flickering,  reddish  light. 

He  smiled  in  self-contempt  at  this  neurotic  fancy ; 
and,  straightening  his  cramped  muscles,  rolled  a 
cigarette.  It  might  be  that  the  years  he  had  spent 
virtually  alone  on  the  silence  of  various  waters  had 
affected  his  brain.  Halvard's  broad,  concentrated 
countenance,  the  steady,  grave  gaze  and  determined 
mouth,  cleared  Woolfolk's  mind  of  its  phantoms. 
He  moved  to  the  cockpit  and  from  there  said: 

"That  will  do  for  today." 

Halvard  followed,  and  commenced  once  more 
the  familiar,  ordered  preparations  for  supper. 
John  Woolfolk,  smoking  while  the  sky  turned  to 
malachite,  became  sharply  aware  of  the  unthink 
able  monotony  of  the  universal  course,  of  the  cen 
turies  wheeling  in  dull  succession  into  infinity. 
Life  seemed  to  him  no  more  varied  than  the  wire 

[34] 


WILD    ORANGES 

drum  in  which  squirrels  raced  nowhere.  His  own 
lot,  he  told  himself  grimly,  was  no  worse  than  an 
other.  Existence  was  all  of  the  same  drab  piece. 
It  had  seemed  gay  enough  when  he  was  young, 
worked  with  gold  and  crimson  threads,  a-nd 
then 

His  thoughts  were  broken  by  Halyard's  appear 
ance  in  the  companionway,  and  he  descended  to  his 
solitary  supper  in  the  contracted,  still  cabin. 

Again  on  deck  his  sense  of  the  monotony  of  life 
trebled.  He  had  been  cruising  now  about  the  edges 
of  continents  for  twelve  years.  For  twelve  years 
he  had  taken  no  part  in  the  existence  of  the  cities 
he  had  passed,  as  often  as  possible  without  stopping, 
and  of  the  villages  gathered  invitingly  under  their 
canopies  of  trees.  He  was — yes,  he  must  be — 
forty-six.  Life  was  passing  away;  well,  let  it  ... 
worthless. 

The  growing  radiance  of  the  moon  glimmered 
across  the  water  and  folded  the  land  in  a  gossamer 
veil.  The  same  uneasiness,  the  inchoate  desire  to 
go  ashore  that  had  seized  upon  him  the  night  before, 
reasserted  its  influence.  The  face  of  Millie  Stope 
floated  about  him  like  a  magical  gardenia  in  the 
night  of  the  matted  trees.  He  resisted  the  pressure 
longer  than  before ;  but  in  the  end  he  was  seated  in 
the  tender,  pulling  toward  the  beach. 

He  entered  the  orange  grove  and  slowly  ap 
proached  the  house  beyond.  Millie  Stope  ad 
vanced  with  a  quick  welcome. 

[35] 


WILD    ORANGES 

"I'm  glad,"  she  said  simply.  "Nicholas  is  back. 
The  fish  weighed— " 

"I  think  I'd  better  not  know,"  he  interrupted. 
"I  might  be  tempted  to  mention  it  in  the  future, 
when  it  would  take  on  the  historic  suspicion  of 
the  fish  story." 

"But  it  was  imposing,"  she  protested.  "Let's  go 
to  the  sea;  it's  so  limitless  in  the  moonlight." 

He  followed  her  over  the  path  to  where  the  re 
mains  of  the  wharf  projected  into  a  sea  as  black, 
and  as  solid  apparently,  as  ebony,  and  across  which 
the  moon  flung  a  narrow  way  like  a  chalk  mark. 
Millie  Stope  seated  herself  on  the  boarding  and  he 
found  a  place  near  by.  She  leaned  forward,  with 
her  arms  propped  up  and  her  chin  couched  on  her 
palms.  Her  potency  increased  rather  than  dim 
inished  with  association;  her  skin  had  a  rare  tex 
ture;  her  movements,  the  turn  of  the  wrists,  were 
distinguished.  He  wondered  again  at  the  strange 
ness  of  her  situation. 

She  looked  about  suddenly  and  surprised  his 
palpable  questioning. 

"You  are  puzzled,"  she  pronounced.  "Perhaps 
you  are  setting  me  in  the  middle  of  romance. 

Please  don't !  Nothing  you  might  guess ' '  She 

broke  off  abruptly,  returned  to  her  former  pose. 
"And  yet,"  she  added  presently,  "I  have  a  perverse 
desire  to  talk  about  myself.  It's  perverse  because, 
although  you  are  a  little  curious,  you  have  no  real 
interest  in  what  I  might  say.  There  is  something 

[36] 


WILD    ORANGES 

about  you  like — yes,  like  the  cast-iron  dog  that 
used  to  stand  in  our  lawn.  It  rusted  away,  cold  to 
the  last  and  indifferent,  although  I  talked  to  it  by 
the  hour.  But  I  did  get  a  little  comfort  from  its 
stolid  painted  eye.  Perhaps  you'd  act  in  the  same 
way. 

"And  then,"  she  went  on  when  Woolfolk  had 
somberly  failed  to  comment,  "you  are  going 
away,  you  will  forget,  it  can't  possibly  matter.  I 
must  talk,  now  that  I  have  urged  myself  this  far. 
After  all,  you  needn't  have  come  back.  But  where 
shall  I  begin?  You  should  know  something  of  the 
very  first.  That  happened  in  Virginia.  .  .  .  My 
father  didn't  go  to  war,"  she  said,  sudden  and  clear. 
She  turned  her  face  toward  him,  and  he  saw  that  it 
had  Ipst  its  flower-like  quality ;  it  looked  as  if  it  had 
been  carved  in  stone. 

"He  lived  in  a  small,  intensely  loyal  town,"  she 
continued;  "and  when  Virginia  seceded  it  burned 
with  a  single  high  fl.ame  of  sacrifice.  My  father 
had  been  always  a  diffident  man;  he  collected 
mezzotints  and  avoided  people.  So,  when  the 
enlistment  began,  he  shrank  away  from  the  crowds 
and  hot  speeches,  and  the  men  went  off  without  him. 
He  lived  in  complete  retirement  then,  with  his 
prints,  in  a  town  of  women.  It  wasn't  impossible 
at  first;  he  discussed  the  situation  with  the  few  old 
tradesmen  that  remained,  and  exchanged  bows  with 
the  wives  and  daughters  of  his  friends.  But  when 
the  dead  commenced  to  be  brought  in  from  the  front 

[37] 


WILD    ORANGES 

it  got  worse.  Belle  Semple — he  had  always 
thought  her  unusually  nice  and  pretty — mocked  at 
him  on  the  street.  Then  one  morning  he  found  an 
apron  tied  to  the  knob  of  the  front  door. 

"After  that  he  went  out  only  at  night.  His 
servants  had  deserted  him,  and  he  lived  by  himself 
in  a  biggish,  solemn  house.  Sometimes  the  news 
of  losses  and  deaths  would  be  shouted  through  his 
windows ;  once  stones  were  thrown  in,  but  mostly  he 
was  let  alone.  It  must  have  been  frightful  in  his 
empty  rooms  when  the  South  went  from  bad  to 
worse."  She  paused,  and  John  Woolfolk  could 
see,  even  in  the  obscurity,  the  slow  shudder  that 
passed  over  her. 

"When  the  war  was  over  and  what  men  were  left 
returned — one  with  hands  gone  at  the  wrists, 
another  without  legs  in  a  shabby  wheelchair — the 
life  of  the  town  started  once  more,  but  my  father 
was  for  ever  outside  of  it.  Little  subscriptions 
for  burials  were  made  up,  small  schemes  for  get 
ting  the  necessities,  but  he  was  never  asked.  Men 
spoke  to  him  again,  even  some  of  the  women. 
That  was  all. 

"I  think  it  was  then  that  a  curious,  perpetual 
dread  fastened  on  his  mind — a  fear  of  the  wind  in 
the  night,  of  breaking  twigs  or  sudden  voices.  He 
ordered  things  to  be  left  on  the  steps,  and  he  would 
peer  out  from  under  the  blind  to  make  sure  that  the 
walk  was  empty  before  he  opened  the  door. 

"You  must  realize,"  she  said  in  a  sharper  voice, 
[38] 


WILD    ORANGES 

"that  my  father  was  not  a  pure  coward  at  first. 
He  was  an  extremely  sensitive  man  who  hated  the 
rude  stir  of  living  and  who  simply  asked  to  be  left 
undisturbed  with  his  portfolios.  But  life's  not  like 
that.  The  war  hunted  him  out  and  ruined  him;  it 
destroyed  his  being,  just  as  it  destroyed  the  fortunes 
of  others. 

"Then  he  began  to  think — it  was  absolute  fancy 
— that  there  was  a  conspiracy  in  the  town  to  kill 
him.  He  sent  some  of  his  things  away,  got  to 
gether  what  money  he  had,  and  one  night  left  his 
home  secretly  on  foot.  He  tramped  south  for 
weeks,  living  for  a  while  in  small  place  after  place, 
until  he  reached  Georgia,  and  then  a  town  about 
fifty  miles  from  here " 

She  broke  off,  sitting  rigidly  erect,  looking  out 
over  the  level  black  sea  with  its  shifting,  chalky 
line  of  light,  and  a  long  silence  followed.  The 
antiphonal  crying  of  the  owls  sounded  over  the 
bubbling  swamp,  the  mephitic  perfume  hung  like  a 
vapor  on  the  shore.  John  Woolfolk  shifted  his 
position. 

"My  mother  told  me  this,"  his  companion  said 
suddenly.  "Father  repeated  it  over  and  over 
through  the  nights  after  they  were  married.  He 
slept  only  in  snatches,  and  would  wake  with  a  gasp 
and  his  heart  almost  bursting.  I  know  almost 
nothing  about  her,  except  that  she  had  a  brave  heart 
— or  she  would  have  gone  mad.  She  was  English 
and  had  been  a  governess.  They  met  in  the  little 

[39] 


WILD    ORANGES 

hotel  where  they  were  married.  Then  father  bought 
this  place,  and  they  came  here  to  live." 

Woolfolk  had  a  vision  of  the  tenuous  figure  of 
Lichfield  Stope;  he  was  surprised  that  such  acute 
agony  had  left  the  slightest  trace  of  humanity;  yet 
the  other,  after  forty  years  of  torment,  still  survived 
to  shudder  at  a  chance  footfall,  the  advent  of  a 
casual  and  harmless  stranger. 

This,  then,  was  by  implication  the  history  of  the 
woman  at  his  side;  it  disposed  of  the  mystery  that 
had  veiled  her  situation  here.  It  was  surprisingly 
clear,  even  to  the  subtle  influence  that,  inherited 
from  her  father,  had  set  the  shadow  of  his  own 
obsession  upon  her  voice  and  eyes.  Yet,  in  the 
moment  that  she  had  been  made  explicable,  he  re 
called  the  conviction  that  the  knowledge  of  an 
actual  menace  lurked  in  her  mind ;  he  had  seen  it  in 
the  tension  of  her  body,  in  the  anxiety  of  fleet  back 
ward  glances. 

The  latter,  he  told  himself,  might  be  merely  a 
symptom  of  mental  sickness,  a  condition  natural  to 
the  influences  under  which  she  had  been  formed. 
He  tested  'and  rejected  that  possibility — there  could 
be  no  doubt  of  her  absolute  sanity.  It  was  patent 
in  a  hundred  details  of  her  carriage,  in  her  mentality 
as  it  had  been  revealed  in  her  restrained,  balanced 
narrative. 

There  was,  too,  the  element  of  her  mother  to  be 
considered.  Millie  Stope  had  known  very  little 
about  her,  principally  the  self-evident  fact  of  the 

[40] 


WILD    ORANGES 

latter's  "brave  heart."  It  would  have  needed  that 
to  remain  steadfast  through  the  racking  recitals  of 
the  long,  waking  darks;  to  accompany  to  this  deso 
late  and  lonely  refuge  the  man  who  had  had  an 
apron  tied  to  his  doorknob.  In  the  degree  that  the 
daughter  had  been  a  prey  to  the  man's  fear  she 
would  have  benefited  from  the  stiffer  qualities  of 
the  English  governess.  Life  once  more  assumed  its 
enigmatic  mask. 

His  companion  said: 

"All  that — and  I  haven't  said  a  word  about  my 
self,  the  real  end  of  my  soliloquy.  I'm  perma 
nently  discouraged;  I  have  qualms  about  boring 
you.  No,  I  shall  never  find  another  listener  as  sat 
isfactory  as  the  iron  dog." 

A  light  glimmered  far  at  sea.  "I  sit  here  a  great 
deal,"  she  informed  him,  "  and  watch  the  ships,  a 
thumbprint  of  blue  smoke  at  day  and  a  spark  at 
night,  going  up  and  down  their  water  roads.  You 
are  enviable — getting  up  your  anchor,  sailing 
where  you  like,  safe  and  free."  Her  voice  took  on 
a  passionate  intensity  that  surprised  him;  it  was 
sick  with  weariness  and  longing,  with  sudden  revolt 
from  the  pervasive  apprehension. 

"Safe  and  free,"  he  repeated  thinly,  as  if  satir 
izing  the  condition  implied  by  those  commonplace, 
assuaging  words.  He  had,  in  his  flight  from 
society,  sought  simply  peace.  John  Woolfolk  now 
questioned  all  his  implied  success.  He  had  found 
the  elemental  hush  of  the  sea,  the  iron  aloofness  of 

[41] 


WILD    ORANGES 

rocky  and  uninhabited  coasts,  but  he  had  never  been 
able  to  still  the  dull  rebellion  within,  the  legacy  of 
the  past.  A  feeling  of  complete  failure  sfettled  over 
him.  His  safety  and  freedom  amounted  to  this — 
that  life  had  broken  him  and  cast  him  aside. 

A  long,  hollow  wail  rose  from  the  land,  and 
Millie  Stope  moved  sharply. 

"There's  Nicholas,"  she  exclaimed,  "blowing  on 
the  conch!  They  don't  know  where  I  am;  I'd 
better  go  in." 

A  small,  evident  panic  took  possession  of  her; 
the  shiver  in  her  voice  swelled. 

"No,  don't  come,"  she  added.  "I'll  be  quicker 
without  you."  She  made  her  way  over  the  wharf  to 
the  shore,  but  there  paused.  "I  suppose  you'll  be 
going  soon?" 

"Tomorrow  probably,"  he  answered. 

On  the  ketch  Halvard  had  gone  below  for  the 
night.  The  yacht  swayed  slightly  to  an  unseen 
swell;  the  riding  light  moved  backward  and  for 
ward,  its  ray  flickering  over  the  glassy  water.  John 
Woolfolk  brought  his  bedding  from  the  cabin  and, 
disposing  it  on  deck,  lay  with  his  wakeful  dark  face 
set  against  the  far,  multitudinous  worlds. 


[42] 


IN  the  morning  Halvard  proposed  a  repainting 
of  the  engine. 
"The  Florida  air,"  he  said,  "eats  metal  over 
night."     And  the  ketch  remained  anchored. 

Later  in  the  day  Woolfolk  sounded  the  water 
casks  cradled  in  the  cockpit,  and,  when  they 
answered  hollow,  directed  his  man  with  regard  to 
their  refilling.  They  drained  a  cask.  Halvard 
put  it  on  the  tender  and  pulled  in  to  the  beach. 
There  he  shouldered  the  empty  container  and  disap 
peared  among  the  trees. 

Woolfolk  was  forward,  preparing  a  chain 
hawser  for  coral  anchorages,  when  he  saw  Hal 
vard  tramping  shortly  back  over  the  sand.  He  en 
tered  the  tender  and,  with  a  vicious  shove,  rowed 
with  a  powerful,  vindictive  sweep  toward  the  ketch. 
The  cask  evidently  had  been  left  behind.  He  made 
the  tender  fast  and  swung  aboard  with  his  notable 
agility. 

"There's  a  damn  idiot  in  that  house,"  he  declared, 
in  a  surprising  departure  from  his  customary  de 
tached  manner. 

"Explain  yourself,"  Woolfolk  demanded  shortly. 

"But  I'm  going  back  after  him,"  the  sailor  stub- 
[43] 


WILD    ORANGES 

bornly  proceeded.  "I'll  turn  any  knife  out  of  his 
hand."  It  was  evident  that  he  was  laboring  under 
an  intense  growing  excitement  and  anger. 

"The  only  idiot's  not  on  land,"  Woolfolk  told 
him.     "Where's  the  water  cask  you  took  ashore?" 

"Broken." 

"How?" 

"I'll  tell  you  fast  enough.  There  was  nobody 
about  when  I  went  up  to  the  house,  although  there 
was  a  chair  rocking  on  the  porch  as  if  a  person  had 
just  left.  I  knocked  at  the  door;  it  was  open,  and 
I  was  certain  that  I  heard  someone  inside,  but  no 
body  answered.  Then  after  a  bit  I  went  around 
back.  The  kitchen  was  open,  too,  and  no  one  in 
sight.  I  saw  the  water  cistern  and  thought  I'd  fill 
up,  when  you  could  say  something  afterward.  I 
did,  and  was  rolling  the  cask  about  the  house  when 
this — loggerhead  came  out  of  the  bushes.  He 
wanted  to  know  what  I  was  getting  away  with,  and 
I  explained,  but  it  didn't  suit  him.  He  said  I 
might  be  telling  facts  and  again  I  mightn't.  I  saw 
there  was  no  use  talking,  and  started  rolling  the 
cask  again;  but  he  put  his  foot  on  it,  and  I  pushed 
one  way  and  he  the  other " 

"And  between  you,  you  stove  in  the  cask,"  Wool- 
folk  interrupted. 

"That's  it,"  Poul  Halvard  answered  concisely. 
"Then  I  got  mad,  and  offered  to  beat  in  his  face, 
but  he  had  a  knife.  I  could  have  broken  it  out  of 
his  grip — I've  done  it  before  in  a  place  or  two — 

[44] 


WILD    ORANGES 

but  I  thought  I'd  better  come  aboard  and  report  be 
fore  anything  general  began." 

John  Woolfolk  was  momentarily  at  a  loss  to  es 
tablish  the  identity  of  Halyard's  assailant. 

He  soon  realized,  however,  that  it  must  be  Nich 
olas,  whom  he  had  never  seen,  and  who  had  blown 
such  an  imperative  summons  on  the  conch  the  night 
before.  Halvard's  temper  was  communicated  to 
him;  he  moved  abruptly  to  where  the  tender  was 
fastened. 

"Put  me  ashore,"  he  directed.  He  would  make 
it  clear  that  his  man  was  not  to.  be  interrupted  in 
the  execution  of  his  orders,  and  that  his  property 
could  not  be  arbitrarily  destroyed. 

When  the  tender  ran  upon  the  beach  and  had 
been  secured,  Halvard  started  to  follow  him,  but 
Woolfolk  waved  him  back.  There  was  a  stir  on 
the  portico  as  he  approached,  the  flitting  of  an  un 
substantial  form;  but,  hastening,  John  Woolfolk 
arrested  Lichfield  Stope  in  the  doorway. 

"Morning,"  he  nodded  abruptly.  "I  came  to 
speak  to  you  about  a  water  cask  of  mine." 

The  other  swayed  like  a  thin,  grey  column  of 
smoke. 

"Ah,  yes,"  he  pronounced  with  difficulty.  "Water 
cask " 

"It  was  broken  here  a  little  while  back." 

At  the  suggestion  of  violence  such  a  pitiable  panic 
fell  upon  the  older  man  that  Woolfolk  halted. 
Lichfield  Stope  raised  his  hands  as  if  to  ward  off 

[45] 


WILD    ORANGES 

the  mere  impact  of  the  words  themselves;  his  face 
was  stained  with  the  thin  red  tide  of  congestion. 

"You  have  a  man  named  Nicholas,"  Woolfolk 
proceeded.  "I  should  like  to  see  him." 

The  other  made  a  gesture  as  tremulous  and 
indeterminate  as  his  speech  and  appeared  to  dis 
solve  into  the  hall.  John  Woolfolk  stood  for  a 
moment  undecided  and  then  moved  about  the  house 
toward  the  kitchen.  There,  he  thought,  he  might 
obtain  an  explanation  of  the  breaking  of  the  cask. 
A  man  was  walking  about  within  and  came  to  the 
door  as  Woolfolk  approached. 

The  latter  told  himself  that  he  had  never  seen 
a  blanker  countenance.  In  profile  it  showed  a 
narrow  brow,  a  huge,  drooping  nose,  a  pinched 
mouth  and  insignificant  chin.  From  the  front  the 
face  of  the  man  in  the  doorway  held  the  round, 
unscored  cheeks  of  a  fat  and  sleepy  boy.  The  eyes 
were  mere  long  glimmers  of  vision  in  thick  folds 
of  flesh ;  the  mouth,  upturned  at  the  corners,  lent  a 
fixed,  mechanical  smile  to  the  whole.  It  was  a 
countenance  on  which  the  passage  of  time  and 
thoughts  had  left  no  mark;  its  stolidity  had  been 
moved  by  no  feeling.  His  body  was  heavy  and 
sagging.  It  possessed,  Woolfolk  recognized,  a 
considerable  unwieldy  strength,  and  was  completely 
covered  by  a  variously  spotted  and  streaked  apron. 

"Are  you  Nicholas?"  John  Woolfolk  demanded. 

The  other  nodded. 

[46] 


WILD    ORANGES 

"Then,  I  take  it,  you  are  the  man  who  broke  my 
water  cask." 

"It  was  full  of  our  water,"  Nicholas  replied  in  a 
thick  voice. 

"That,"  said  Woolfolk,  "I  am  not  going  to  argue 
with  you.  I  came  ashore  to  instruct  you  to  let 
my  man  and  my  property  alone." 

"Then  leave  our  water  be." 

John  Woolfolk's  temper,  the  instinctive  ar 
rogance  of  men  living  apart  from  the  necessary  sub 
missions  of  communal  life,  in  positions — however 
small — of  supreme  command,  flared  through  his 
body. 

"I  told  you,"  he  repeated  shortly,  "that  I  would 
not  discuss  the  question  of  the  water.  I  have  no 
intention  of  justifying  myself  Jo  you.  Remem 
ber — your  han'ds  off." 

The  other  said  surprisingly:  "Don't  get  me 
started!"  A  spasm  of  emotion  made  a  faint,  pas 
sing  shade  on  his  sodden  countenance;  his  voice 
held  alm'ost  a  note  of  appeal. 

"Whether  you  'start'  or  not  is  without  the  slight 
est  significance,"  Woolfolk  coldly  responded. 

"Mind,"  the  man  went  on,  "I  spoke  first." 

A  steady  twitching  commenced  in  a  muscle  at 
the  flange  of  his  nose.  Woolfolk  was  aware  of  an 
increasing  tension  in  the  other,  that  gained  a 
peculiar  oppressiveness  from  the  lack  of  any  cor 
responding  outward  expression.  His  heavy,  blunt 

[47] 


WILD    ORANGES 

hand  fumbled  under  the  maculate  apron;  his  chest 
heaved  with  a  sudden,  tempestuous  breathing. 
"Don't  start  me,"  he  repeated  in  a  voice  so  blurred 
that  the  words  were  hardly  recognizable.  He  swal 
lowed  convulsively,  his  emotion  mounting  to  an 
inchoate  passion,  when  suddenly  a  change  was 
evident.  He  made  a  short,  violent  effort  to  regain 
his  self-control,  his  gaze  fastened  on  a  point  behind 
Woolfolk. 

The  latter  turned  and  saw  Millie  Stope  approach 
ing,  her  countenance  haggard  with  fear.  "What 
has  happened?"  she  cried  breathlessly  while  yet  a 
little  distance  away.  "Tell  me  at  once " 

"Nothing,"  Woolfolk  promptly  replied,  appalled 
by  the  agony  in  her  voice.  "Nicholas  and 
I  had  a  small  misunderstanding.  A  triviality,"  he 
added,  thinking  of  the  other's  hand  groping  beneath 
the  apron. 


[48] 


VI 


ON  the  morning  following  the  breaking  of 
his  water  cask  John  Woolfolk  saw  the  slen 
der  figure  of  Millie  on  the  beach.  She 
waved  and  called,  her  voice  coming  thin  and  clear 
across  the  water: 

"Are  visitors — encouraged?" 

He  sent  Halvard  in  with  the  tender,  and  as  they 
approached,  dropped  a  gangway  over  the  Gar's 
side.  She  stepped  lightly  down  into  the  cockpit 
with  a  naive  expression  of  surprise  at  the  yacht's 
immaculate  order.  The  sails  lay  precisely  housed, 
the  stays,  freshly  tarred,  glistened  in  the  sun,  the 
brasswork  and  newly  varnished  mahogany  shone, 
the  mathematically  coiled  ropes  rested  on  a  deck  as 
spotless  as  wood  could  be  scraped. 

"Why,"  she  exclaimed,  "it  couldn't  be  neater  if 
you  were  two  nice  old  ladies! " 

"I  warn  you,"  Woolfolk  replied,  "Halvard  will 
not  regard  that  particularly  as  a  compliment.  He 
will  assure  you  that  the  order  of  a  proper  yacht 
is  beyond  the  most  ambitious  dream  of  a  mere 
housekeeper." 

She  laughed  as  Halvard  placed  a  chair  for  her. 
She  was,  Woolfolk  thought,  lighter  in  spirit  on  the 

[49] 


WILD    ORANGES 

ketch  than  she  had  been  on  shore;  there  was 
the  faintest  imaginable  stain  on  her  petal-like 
cheeks ;  her  eyes,  like  olive  leaves,  were  almost  gay. 
She  sat  with  her  slender  knees  crossed,  her  fine 
arms  held  with  hands  clasped  behind  her  head,  and 
clad  in  a  crisply  ironed,  crude  white  dress,  into  the 
band  of  which  she  had  thrust  a  spray  of  orange 
blossoms. 

John  Woolfolk  was  increasingly  conscious  of  her 
peculiar  charm.  Millie  Stope,  he  suddenly  real 
ized,  was  like  the  wild  oranges  in  the  neglected  grove 
at  her  door.  A  man  brought  in  contact  with  her 
magnetic  being  charged  with  appealing  and  myster 
ious  emotions,  in  a  setting  of  exotic  night  and  black 
sea,  would  find  other  women,  the  ordinary  concourse 
of  society,  insipid — like  faintly  sweetened  water. 

She  was  entirely  at  home  on  the  ketch,  sitting 
against  the  immaculate  rim  of  deck  and  the  sea.  He 
resented  that  familiarity  as  an  unwarranted  in 
trusion  of  the  world  he  had  left.  Other  people, 
women  among  them,  had  unavoidably  crossed  his 
deck,  but  they  had  been  patently  alien,  momentary; 
but  Millie,  with  her  still  delight  at  the  yacht's  com 
pact  comfort,  her  intuitive  comprehension  of  its 
various  details — the  lamps  set  in  gimbals,  the 
china  racks  and  chart  cases  slung  overhead — en 
tered  at  once  into  the  spirit  of  the  craft  that  was 
John  Woolfolk's  sole  place  of  being. 

He  was  now  disturbed  by  the  ease  with  which 
she  had  established  herself  both  in  the  yacht  and  in 

[50] 


WILD    ORANGES 

his  imagination.  He  had  thought,  after  so  many 
years,  to  have  destroyed  all  the  bonds  which  ordinar 
ily  connect  men  with  life;  but  now  a  mere  curiosity 
had  grown  into  a  tangible  interest,  and  the  interest 
showed  unmistakable  signs  of  becoming  sympathy. 

She  smiled  at  him  from  her  position  by  the  wheel ; 
and  he  instinctively  responded  with  such  an  unac 
customed,  ready  warmth  that  he  said  abruptly,  seek 
ing  refuge  in  occupation: 

"Why  not  reach  out  to  sea?  The  conditions 
are  perfect." 

"Ah,  please!"  she  cried.  "Just  to  take  up  the 
anchor  would  thrill  me  for  months." 

A  light  west  wind  was  blowing;  and  deliberate, 
exactly  spaced  swells,  their  tops  laced  with  irides 
cent  spray,  were  sweeping  in  from  a  sea  like  a 
glassy  blue  pavement.  Woolfolk  issued  a  short 
order,  and  the  sailor  moved  forward  with  his 
customary  smooth  swiftness.  The  sails  were  shaken 
loose,  the  mainsail  slowly  spread  its  dazzling  ex 
panse  to  the  sun,  the  jib  and  jigger  were  trimmed, 
and  the  anchor  came  up  with  a  short  rush. 

Millie  rose  with  her  arms  outspread,  her  chin 
high  and  eyes  closed. 

"Free!"  she  proclaimed  with  a  slow,  deep  breath. 

The  sails  filled  and  the  ketch  forged  ahead. 
John  Woolfolk,  at  the  wheel,  glanced  at  the  chart 
section  beside  him. 

"There's  four  feet  on  the  bar  at  low  water,"  he 
[51] 


WILD    ORANGES 

told  Halvard.     "The  tide's   at  half  flood  now." 

The  Gar  increased  her  speed,  slipping  easily  out 
of  the  bay,  gladly,  it  seemed  to  Woolfolk,  turning 
toward  the  sea.  The  bow  rose,  and  the  ketch  dipped 
forward  over  a  spent  wave.  Millie  Stope  grasped 
the  wheelbox.  "Free!"  she  said  again  with  shin 
ing  eyes. 

The  yacht  rose  more  sharply,  hung  on  a  wave's 
crest  and  slid  lightly  downward.  Woolfolk,  with 
a  sinewy,  dark  hand  directing  their  course,  was 
intent  upon  the  swelling  sails.  Once  he  stopped, 
tightening  a  halyard,  and  the  sailor  said : 

"The  main  peak  won't  flatten,  sir." 

The  swells  grew  larger.  The  Gar  climbed  their 
smooth  heights  and  coasted  like  a  feather  beyond. 
Directly  before  the  yacht  they  were  unbroken,  but 
on  either  side  they  foamed  into  a  silver  quickly  re- 
absorbed  in  the  deeper  water  within  the  bar. 

Woolfolk  turned  from  his  scrutiny  of  the  ketch 
to  his  companion,  and  was  surprised  to  see  her,  with 
all  the  joy  evaporated  from  her  countenance,  cling 
ing  rigidly  to  the  rail,  He  said  to  himself,  "Sea 
sick."  Then  he  realized  that  it  was  not  a  physical 
illness  that  possessed  her,  but  a  profound,  increasing 
terror.  She  endeavored  to  smile  back  at  his  ques 
tioning  gaze,  and  said  in  a  small,  uncertain  voice: 

"It's  so— so  big!" 

For  a  moment  he  saw  in  her  a  clear  resemblance 
to  the  shrinking  figure  of  Lichfield  Stope.  It  was 
as  though  suddenly  she  had  lost  her  fine  profile 

[52] 


WILD    ORANGES 

and  become  indeterminate,  shadowy.  The  grey 
web  of  the  old  deflection  in  Virginia  ex 
tended  over  her  out  of  the  past — of  -the  past  that, 
Woolfolk  thought,  would  not  die. 

The  Gar  rose  higher  still,  dropped  into  the  deep, 
watery  valley,  and  the  woman's  face  was  drawn  and 
wet,  the  back  of  her  straining  hand  was  dead  white. 
Without  further  delay  John  Woolfolk  put  the  wheel 
sharply  over  and  told  his  man,  "We're  going  about." 
Halvard  busied  himself  with  the  shaking  sails. 

"Really — I'd  rather  you  didn't,"  Millie  gasped. 
"I  must  learn  ...  no  longer  a  child." 

But  Woolfolk  held  the  ketch  on  her  return  course ; 
his  companion's  panic  was  growing  beyond  her  con 
trol.  They  passed  once  more  between  the  broken 
waves  and  entered  the  still  bay  with  its  border  of 
flowering  earth.  There,  when  the  yacht  had  been 
anchored,  Millie  sat  gazing  silently  at  the  open  sea 
whose  bigness  had  so  unexpectedly  distressed  her. 
Her  face  was  pinched,  her  mouth  set  in  a  straight, 
hard  line.  That,  somehow,  suggested  to  Woolfolk 
the  enigmatic  governess;  it  was  in  contradiction 
to  the  rest. 

"How  strange,"  she  said  at  last  in  an  insuper 
ably  weary  voice,  "to  be  forced  back  to  this  place 
that  I  loathe,  by  myself,  by  my  own  cowardice. 
It's  exactly  as  if  my  spirit  were  chained — then  the 
body  could  never  be  free.  What  is  it,"  she  de 
manded  of  John  Woolfolk,  "that  lives  in  our  own 
hearts  and  betrays  our  utmost  convictions  and  ef- 

[53] 


WILD    ORANGES 

forts,  and  destroys  us  against  all  knowledge  and  de 
sire?" 

"It  may  be  called  heredity,"  he  replied;  "that  is 
its  simplest  phase.  The  others  extend  into  the 
realms  of  the  fantastic." 

"It's  unjust,"  she  cried  bitterly,  "to  be  condemned 
to  die  in  a  pit  with  all  one's  instinct  in  the  sky ! " 

The  old  plea  of  injustice  quivered  for  a  moment 
over  the  water  and  then  died  away.  John  Wool- 
folk  had  made  the  same  passionate  protest,  he  had 
cried  it  with  clenched  hands  at  the  withdrawn  stars, 
and  the  profound  inattention  of  Nature  had  ap 
palled  his  agony.  A  thrill  of  pity  moved  him  for 
the  suffering  woman  beside  him.  Her  mouth  was 
still  unrelaxed.  There  was  in  her  the  material  for 
a  struggle  against  the  invidious  past. 

In  her  slender  frame  the  rebellion  took  on  an  ac 
cent  of  the  heroic.  Woolfolk  recalled  how  utterly 
he  had  gone  down  before  mischance.  But  his  case 
had  been  extreme,  he  had  suffered  an  unendur 
able  wrong  at  the  hand  of  Fate.  Halvard  diverted 
his  thoughts  by  placing  before  them  a  tray  of  sug 
ared  pineapple  and  symmetrical  cakes.  Millie, 
too,  lost  her  tension ;  she  showed  a  feminine  pleasure 
at  the  yacht's  fine  napkins,  approved  the  polish  of 
the  glass. 

"It's  all  quite  wonderful,"  she  said. 

"I  have  nothing  else  to  care  for,"  Woolfolk  told 
her. 

"No  place  nor  people  on  land?" 
[54] 


WILD    ORANGES 

"None." 

"And  you  are  satisfied?" 

"Absolutely,"  he  replied  with  an  unnecessary 
emphasis.  He  was,  he  told  himself  aggressively; 
he  wanted  nothing  more  from  living  and  had  noth 
ing  to  give.  Yet  his  pity  for  Millie  Stope  mounted 
obscurely,  bringing  with  it  thoughts,  dim  obligations 
and  desires,  to  which  he  had  declared  himself  dead. 

"I  wonder  if  you  are  to  be  envied?"  she  queried. 

A  sudden  astounding  willingness  to  speak  of  him 
self,  even  of  the  past,  swept  over  him. 

"Hardly,"  he  replied.  "All  the  things  that  men 
value  were  killed  for  me  in  an  instant,  in  the  flutter 
of  a  white  skirt." 

"Can  you  talk  about  it?" 

"There's  almost  nothing  to  tell;  it  was  so  un 
related,  so  senseless  and  blind.  It  can't  be  dressed 
into  a  story,  it  has  no  moral — no  meaning.  Well 
— it  was  twelve  years  ago.  I  had  just  been 
married,  and  we  had  gone  to  a  property  in  the 
country.  After  two  days  I  had  to  go  into  town, 
and  when  I  came  back  Ellen  met  me  in  a  breaking 
cart.  It  was  a  flag  station,  buried  in  maples,  with 
a  white  road  winding  back  to  where  we  were 
staying. 

"Ellen  had  trouble  in  holding  the  horse  when  the 
train  left,  and  the  beast  shied  going  from  the 
station.  It  was  Monday,  clothes  hung  from  a  line 
in  a  side  yard  and  a  skirt  fluttered  in  a  little  breeze. 
The  horse  reared,  the  strapped  back  of  the  seat 

[55] 


WILD    ORANGES 

broke,  and  Ellen  was  thrown — on  her  head.  It 
killed  her." 

He  fell  silent.  Millie  breathed  sharply,  and  a 
ripple  struck  with  a  faint  slap  on  the  yacht's  side. 
Then:  "One  can't  allow  that,"  he  continued  in  a 
lower  voice,  as  if  arguing  with  himself;  "arbitrary, 
wanton;  impossible  to  accept  such  conditions 

"She  was  young,"  he  once  more  took  up  the 
narrative;  "a  girl  in  a  tennis  skirt  with  a  gay  scarf 
about  her  waist — quite  dead  in  a  second.  The 
clothes  still  fluttered  on  the  line.  You  see,"  he 
ended,  "nothing  instructive,  tragic — only  a  crude 
dissonance." 

"Then  you  left  everything?" 

He  failed  to  answer,  and  she  gazed  with  a  new 
understanding  and  interest  over  the  Gar.  Her 
attention  was  attracted  to  the  beach,  and,  following 
her  gaze,  John  Woolfolk  saw  the  bulky  figure  of 
Nicholas  gazing  at  them  from  under  his  palm.  A 
palpable  change,  a  swift  shadow,  enveloped  Millie 
Stope. 

"I  must  go  back,"  she  said  uneasily;  "there  will 
be  dinner,  and  my  father  has  been  alone  all 
morning." 

But  Woolfolk  was  certain  that,  however  con 
vincing  the  reasons  she  put  forward,  it  was  none  of 
these  that  was  taking  her  so  hurriedly  ashore.  The 
dread  that  for  the  past  few  hours  had  almost 
vanished  from  her  tones,  her  gaze,  had  returned 

[56] 


WILD    ORANGES 

multiplied.  It  was,  he  realized,  the  objective  fear; 
her  entire  being  was  shrinking  as  if  in  anticipation 
of  an  imminent  calamity,  a  physical  blow. 

Woolfolk  himself  put  her  on  the  beach;  and, 
with  the  tender  canted  on  the  sand,  steadied  her 
spring.  As  her  hand  rested  on  his  arm  it  gripped 
him  with  a  sharp  force;  a  response  pulsed  through 
his  body;  and  an  involuntary  color  rose  in  her  pale, 
fine  cheeks. 

Nicholas,  stolidly  set  with  his  shoes  half  buried 
in  the  sand,  surveyed  them  without  a  shade  of 
feeling  on  his  thick  countenance.  But  Woolfolk 
saw  that  the  other's  fingers  were  crawling  toward  his 
pocket.  He  realized  that  the  man's  dully  smiling 
mask  concealed  sultry,  ungoverned  emotions,  blind 
springs  of  hate. 


[57] 


VII 


AGAIN  on  the  ketch  the  inevitable  reaction 
overtook  him.     He  had  spoken  of  Ellen's 
death  to  no  one  until  now,  through  all  the 
years  when  he  had  been  a  wanderer  on  the  edge  of 
his  world,  and  he  bitterly  regretted  his  reference 
to  it.     In  speaking  he  had  betrayed  his  resolution 
of    solitude.     Life,    against   all   his   instinct,    his 
wishes,  had  reached  out  and  caught  him,  however 
lightly,  in  its  tentacles. 

The  least  surrender,  he  realized,  the  slightest 
opening  of  his  interest,  would  bind  him  with  a 
multitude  of  attachments;  the  octopus  that  he 
dreaded,  uncoiling  arm  after  arm,  would  soon  hold 
him  again,  a  helpless  victim  for  the  fury  Chance. 

He  had  made  a  disastrous  error  in  following  his 
curiosity,  the  insistent  scent  of  the  wild  oranges,  to 
the  house  where  Millie  had  advanced  on  the  dim 
portico.  His  return  there  had  been  the  inevitable 
result  of  the  first  mistake,  and  the  rest  had  followed 
with  a  fatal  ease.  Whatever  had  been  the  defi- 
ciences  of  the  past  twelve  years  he  had  been  free 
from  new  complications,  fresh  treacheries.  Now, 
with  hardly  a  struggle,  he  was  falling  back  into  the 
old  trap. 

[58] 


WILD    ORANGES 

The  wind  died  away  absolutely,  and  a  haze 
gathered  delicately  over  the  sea,  thickening  through 
the  afternoon,  and  turned  rosy  by  the  declining  sun. 
The  shore  had  faded  from  sight. 

A  sudden  energy  leaped  through  John  Woolfolk 
and  rang  out  in  an  abrupt  summons  to  Halvard. 
"Get  up  anchor,"  he  commanded. 

Poul  Halvard,  at  the  mainstay,  remarked 
tentatively:  "There's  not  a  capful  of  wind." 

The  wide  calm,  Woolfolk  thought,  was  but  a 
part  of  a  general  conspiracy  against  his  liberty,  his 
memories.  "Get  the  anchor  up,"  he  repeated 
harshly.  "We'll  go  under  the  engine."  The 
sudden  jarring  of  the  Gar's  engine  sounded  muffled 
in  a  shut  space  like  the  flushed  heart  of  a  shell. 
The  yacht  moved  forward,  with  a  wake  like  folded 
gauze,  into  a  shimmer  of  formless  and  pure  color. 

John  Woolfolk  sat  at  the  wheel,  motionless  ex 
cept  for  an  occasional  scant  shifting  of  his  hands. 
He  was  sailing  by  compass;  the  patent  log,  trailing 
behind  on  its  long  cord,  maintained  a  constant, 
jerking  register  on  its  dial.  He  had  resolutely 
banished  all  thought  save  that  of  navigation. 
Halvard  was  occupied  forward,  clearing  the  deck 
of  the  accumulations  of  the  anchorage.  When  he 
came  aft  Woolfolk  said  shortly:  "No  mess." 

The  haze  deepened  and  night  fell,  and  the  sailor 
lighted  and  placed  the  port  and  starboard  lights. 
The  binnacle  lamp  threw  up  a  dim,  orange  radiance 
on  Woolfolk's  somber  countenance.  He  continued 

[59] 


WILD    ORANGES 

for  three  and  four  and  then  five  hours  at  the  wheel, 
while  the  smooth  clamor  of  the  engine,  a  slight 
quiver  of  the  hull,  alone  marked  their  progress 
through  an  invisible  element. 

Once  more  he  had  left  life  behind.  This  had 
more  the  aspect  of  a  flight  than  at  any  time  previous. 
It  was,  obscurely,  an  unpleasant  thought,  and  he 
endeavored — unsuccessfully — to  put  it  from  him. 
He  was  but  pursuing  the  course  he  had  laid  out,  fol 
lowing  his  necessary,  inflexible  determination. 

His  mind  for  a  moment  turned  independently 
back  to  Millie  with  her  double  burden  of  fear.  He 
had  left  her  without  a  word,  isolated  with  Nicho 
las,  concealing  with  a  blank  smile  his  enigmatic 
being,  and  with  her  impotent  parent. 

Well,  he  was  not  responsible  for  her,  he  had  paid 
for  the  privilege  of  immunity ;  he  had  but  listened  to 
her  story,  volunteering  nothing.  John  Woolfolk 
wished,  however,  that  he  had  said  some  final,  useful 
word  to  her  before  going.  He  was  certain  that, 
looking  for  the  ketch  and  unexpectedly  finding  the 
bay  empty,  she  would  suffer  a  pang,  if  only  of  loneli 
ness.  In  the  short  while  that  he  had  been  there  she 
had  come  to  depend  on  him  for  companionship, 
for  relief  from  the  insuperable  monotony  of  her  sur 
roundings;  for,  perhaps,  still  more.  He  wondered 
what  that  more  might  contain.  He  thought  of 
Millie  at  the  present  moment,  probably  lying  awake, 
steeped  in  dread.  His  flight  now  assumed  the  as- 

[60] 


WILD    ORANGES 

pect  of  an  act  of  cowardice,  of  desertion.  He  re 
hearsed  wearily  the  extenuations  of  his  position,  but 
without  any  palpable  relief. 

An  even  more  disturbing  possibility  lodged  in  his 
thoughts — he  was  not  certain  that  he  did  not  wish 
to  be  actually  back  with  Millie  again.  He  felt  the 
quick  pressure  of  her  fingers  on  his  arm  as  she 
jumped  from  the  tender;  her  magnetic  personality 
hung  about  him  like  an  aroma.  Cloaked  in  mys 
tery,  pale  and  irresistible,  she  appealed  to  him  from 
the  edge  of  the  wild  oranges. 

This,  he  told  himself  again,  was  but  the  manner 
in  which  a  ruthless  Nature  set  her  lures ;  it  was  the 
deceptive  vestment  of  romance.  He  held  the  ketch 
relentlessly  on  her  course,  with — now — all  his 
thoughts,  his  inclinations,  returning  to  Millie  Stope. 
In  a  final,  desperate  rally  of  his  scattering  reso 
lution  he  told  himself  that  he  was  unfaithful 
to  the  tragic  memory  of  Ellen.  This  last  stay 
broke  abruptly,  and  left  him  defenseless  against 
the  tyranny  of  his  mounting  desires.  Strangely 
he  felt  the  sudden  pressure  of  a  stirring 
wind  upon  this  face;  and,  almost  with  an  oath, 
he  put  the  wheel  sharply  over  and  the  Gar  swung 
about. 

Poul  Halvard  had  been  below,  by  inference 
asleep;  but  when  the  yacht  changed  her  course  he 
immediately  appeared  on  deck.  He  moved  aft,  but 
Woolfolk  made  no  explanation,  the  sailor  put  no 

[61] 


WILD    ORANGES 

questions.  The  wind  freshened,  grew  sustained. 
Woolfolk  said: 

"Make  sail." 

Soon  after,  the  mainsail  rose,  a  ghostly  white  ex 
panse  on  the  night.  John  Woolfolk  trimmed  the 
jigger,  shut  off  the  engine;  and,  moving  through  a 
sudden,  vast  hush,  they  retraced  their  course.  The 
bay  was  ablaze  with  sunlight,  the  morning  well  ad 
vanced,  when  the  ketch  floated  back  to  her  anchor 
age  under  the  oleanders. 


[62] 


VIII 

WHETHER  he  returned  or  fled,  Wool- 
folk  thought,  he  was  enveloped  in  an 
atmosphere  of  defeat.  He  relinquished 
the  wheel,  but  remained  seated,  drooping  at  his  post. 
The  indefatigable  Halvard  proceeded  with  the 
efficient  discharge  of  his  narrow,  exacting  duties. 
After  a  short  space  John  Woolfolk  descended  to  the 
cabin,  where,  on  an  unmade  berth,  he  fell  immedi 
ately  asleep. 

He  woke  to  a  dim  interior  and  twilight  gathering 
outside.  He  shaved — without  conscious  purpose 
— with  meticulous  care,  and  put  on  the  blue  flannel 
coat.  Later  he  rowed  'himself  ashore  and  proceeded 
directly  through  the  orange  grove  to  the  house 
beyond. 

Millie  Stope  was  seated  on  the  portico,  and 
laid  a  restraining  hand  on  her  father's  arm  as  he 
rose,  attempting  to  retreat  at  Woolfolk's  approach. 
The  latter,  with  a  commonplace  greeting,  resumed 
his  place. 

Millie's  face  was  dim  and  potent  in  the  gloom, 
and  Lichfield  Stope  more  than  ever  resembled 
an  uneasy  ghost.  He  muttered  an  indistinct  re 
sponse  to  a  period  directed  at  him  by  Woolfolk  and 

[63] 


WILD    ORANGES 

turned  with  a  low,  urgent  appeal  to  his  daughter. 
The  latter,  with  a  hopeless  gesture,  relinquished  his 
arm,  and  the  other  vanished. 

"You  were  sailing  this  morning,"  Millie  com 
mented  listlessly. 

"I  had  gone,"  he  said  without  explanation. 
Then  he  added:  "But  I  came  back." 

A  silence  threatened  them  which  he  resolutely 
broke:  "Do  you  remember,  when  you  told  me  about 
your  father,  that  you  wanted  really  to  talk  about 
yourself?  Will  you  do  that  now?" 

"Tonight  I  haven't  the  courage." 

"I  am  not  idly  curious,"  he  persisted. 

"Just  what  are  you?" 

"I  don't  know,"  he  admitted  frankly.  "At  the 
present  moment  I'm  lost,  fogged.  But,  meanwhile, 
I'd  like  to  give  you  any  assistance  in  my  power. 
You  seem,  in  a  mysterious  way,  needful  of  help." 

She  turned  her  head  sharply  in  the  direction  of 
the  open  hall  and  said  in  a  high,  clear  voice,  that 
yet  rang  strangely  false:  "I  am  quite  well  cared 
for  by  my  father  and  Nicholas."  She  moved  closer 
to  him,  dragging  her  chair  across  the  uneven  porch, 
in  the  rasp  of  which  she  added,  quick  and  low: 

"Don't— please." 

A  mounting  exasperation  seized  him  at  the  se 
crecy  that  veiled  her,  hid  her  from  him,  and  he 
answered  stiffly:  "I  am  merely  intrusive." 

She  was  seated  above  him,  and  she  leaned  for 
ward    and*  swiftly    pressed    his    fingers,    loosely 
'  [64] 


WILD    ORANGES 

clasped  about  a  knee.  Her  hand  was  as  cold  as 
salt.  His  irritation  vanished  before  a  welling  pity. 
He  got  now  a  sharp,  recognized  happiness  from  her 
nearness;  his  feeling  for  her  increased  with  the  ac 
cumulating  seconds.  After  the  surrender,  the  ad 
mission,  of  his  return  he  had  grown  elemental,  sen 
sitized  to  emotions  rather  than  to  processes  of  in 
tellect.  His  ardor  had  the  poignancy  of  the  period 
beyond  youth.  It  had  a  trace  of  the  consciousness 
of  the  fatal  waning  of  life  which  gave  it  a  depth 
denied  to  younger  passions.  He  wished  to  take 
Millie  Stope  at  once  from  all  memory  of  the  troub 
lous  past,  to  have  her  alone  in  a  totally  different 
and  thrilling  existence. 

It  was  a  personal  and  blind  desire,  born  in  the 
unaccustomed  tumult  of  his  newly  released  feel 
ings. 

They  sat  for  a  long  while,  silent  or  speaking  in 
trivialities,  when  he  proposed  a  walk  to  the  sea;  but 
she  declined  in  that  curiously  loud  and  false  tone. 
It  seemed  to  Woolf oik  that,  for  the  moment,  she  had 
addressed  someone  not  immediately  present;  and 
involuntarily  he  looked  around.  The  light  of  the 
hidden  lamp  in  the  hall  fell  in  a  pale,  unbroken 
rectangle  on  the  irregular  porch.  There  was  not  the 
shifting  of  a  pound's  weight  audible  in  the  stillness. 

Millie  breathed  unevenly;  at  times  he  saw  she 
shivered  uncontrollably.  At  this  his  feeling 
mounted  beyond  all  restraint.  He  said,  taking  her 
cold  hand :  "I  didn't  tell  you  why  I  went  last  night 

[65] 


WILD    ORANGES 

— it  was  because  I  was  afraid  to  stay  where  you 
were ;  I  was  afraid  of  the  change  you  were  bringing 
about  in  my  life.  That's  all  over  now,  I " 

" Isn't  it  quite  late?"  she  interrupted  him  uncom 
fortably.  She  rose  and  her  agitation  visibly  in 
creased. 

He  was  about  to  force  her  to  hear  all  that  he 
must  say,  but  he  stopped  at  the  mute  wretchedness 
of  her  pallid  face.  He  stood  gazing  up  at  her 
from  the  rough  sod.  She  clenched  her  hands,  her 
breast  heaved  sharply,  and  she  spoke  in  a  level, 
strained  voice: 

"It  would  have  been  better  if  you  had  gone — - 
without  coming  back.  My  father  is  unhappy  with 
anyone  about  except  myself — and  Nicholas.  You 
see — he  will  not  stay  on  the  porch  nor  walk  about 
his  grounds.  I  am  not  in  need  of  assistance,  as  you 
seem  to  think.  And — thank  you.  Good  night." 

He  stood  without  moving,  his  head  thrown  back, 
regarding  her  with  a  searching  frown.  He  lis 
tened  again,  unconsciously,  and  thought  he  heard 
the  low  creaking  of  a  board  from  within.  It  could 
be  nothing  but  the  uneasy  peregrination  of  Lich- 
field  Stope.  The  sound  was  repeated,  grew  louder, 
and  the  sagging  bulk  of  Nicholas  appeared  in  the 
doorway. 

The  latter  stood  for  a  moment,  a  dark,  magni 
fied  shape;  and  then,  moving  across  the  portico  to 
the  farthest  window,  closed  the  shutters.  The 
hinges  gave  out  a  rasping  grind,  as  if  they  had  not 

[66] 


WILD    ORANGES 

been  turned  for  months,  and  there  was  a  faint  rat 
tle  of  falling  particles  of  rusted  iron.  The  man 
forced  shut  a  second  set  of  shutters  with  a  sudden 
violence  and  went  slowly  back  into  the  house.  Mil 
lie  Stope  said  once  more: 

"Good  night." 

It  was  evident  to  Woolfolk  that  he  could  gain 
nothing  more  at  present;  and  stifling  an  angry  pro 
test,  an  impatient  troop  of  questions,  he  turned  and 
strode  back  to  the  tender.  However,  he  hadn't  the 
slightest  intention  of  following  Millie's  indirectly 
expressed  wish  for  him  to  leave.  He  had  the  odd 
conviction  that  at  heart  she  did  not  want  him  to  go ; 
the  evening,  he  elaborated  this  feeling,  had  been  all 
a  strange  piece  of  acting.  Tomorrow  he  would  tear 
apart  the  veil  that  hid  her  from  him;  he  would  ig 
nore  her  every  protest  and  force  the  truth  from  her. 

He  lifted  the  tender's  anchor  from  the  sand  and 
pulled  sharply  across  the  water  to  the  Gar.  A  red 
dish,  misshapen  moon  hung  in  the  east,  and  when 
he  had  mounted  to  his  deck  it  was  suddenly  ob 
scured  by  a  high,  racing  scud  of  cloud ;  the  air  had 
a  damper,  thicker  feel.  He  instinctively  moved  to 
the  barometer,  which  he  found  depressed.  The 
wind,  that  had  continued  steadily  since  the  night  be 
fore,  increased,  and  there  was  a  corresponding  stir 
among  the  branches  ashore,  a  slapping  of  the 
yacht's  cordage  against  the  spars.  He  turned  for 
ward  and  half  absently  noted  the  increasing  strain 
on  the  hawser  disappearing  into  the  dark  tide.  The 

[67] 


WILD    ORANGES 

anchor  was  firmly  bedded.  The  pervasive  far  mur 
mur  of  the  waves  on  the  outer  bars  grew  louder. 

The  yacht  swung  lightly  over  the  choppy  water, 
and  a  strong  affection  for  the  ketch  that  had  been 
his  home,  his  occupation,  his  solace  through  the 
past  dreary  years  expanded  his  heart.  He  knew 
the  Gar's  every  capability  and  mood,  and  they  were 
all  good.  She  was  an  exceptional  boat.  His  feel 
ing  was  acute,  for  he  knew  that  the  yacht  had  been 
superseded.  It  was  already  an  element  of  the  past, 
of  that  past  in  which  Ellen  lay  dead  in  a  tennis 
skirt,  with  a  bright  scarf  about  her  young  waist. 

He  placed  his  hand  on  the  mainmast,  in  the  man 
ner  in  which  another  might  drop  a  palm  on  the 
shoulder  of  a  departing  faithful  companion,  and  the 
wind  in  the  rigging  vibrated  through  the  wood 
like  a  sentient  and  affectionate  response.  Then  he 
went  resolutely  down  into  the  cabin,  facing  the  fu 
ture. 

John  Woolfolk  woke  in  the  night,  listened  for  a 
moment  to  the  straining  hull  and  wind  shrilling 
aloft,  and  then  rose  and  went  forward  again  to  ex 
amine  the  mooring.  A  second  hawser  now  reached 
into  the  darkness.  Halvard  had  been  on  deck  and 
put  out  another  anchor.  The  wind  beat  salt 
and  stinging  from  the  sea,  utterly  dissipating  the 
languorous  breath  of  the  land,  the  odors  of  the 
exotic,  flowering  trees. 

[68] 


IX 


IN  the  morning  a  storm,  driving  out  of  the  east, 
enveloped  the  coast  in  a  frigid,  lashing  rain. 
The  wind  mounted  steadily  through  the  middle 
of  the  day  with  an  increasing  pitch  accompanied  by 
the  basso  of  the  racing  seas.     The  bay  grew  opaque 
and  seamed  with  white  scars.     After  the  meridian 
the  rain  ceased,  but  the  wind  maintained  its  volume, 
clamoring  beneath  a  leaden  pall. 

John  Woolfolk,  in  dripping  yellow  oilskins,  oc 
casionally  circled  the  deck  of  his  ketch.  Halvard 
had  everything  in  a  perfection  of  order.  When  the 
rain  stopped,  the  sailor  dropped  into  the  tender  and 
with  a  boat  sponge  bailed  vigorously.  Soon  after, 
Woolfolk  stepped  out  upon  the  beach.  He  was 
without  any  plan  but  the  determination  to  put  aside 
whatever  obstacles  held  Millie  from  him.  This 
rapidly  crystallized  into  the  resolve  to  take  her 
with  him  before  another  day  ended.  His  feeling 
for  her,  increasing  to  a  passionate  need,  had  de 
stroyed  the  suspension,  the  deliberate  calm  of  his 
life,  as  the  storm  had  dissipated  the  sunny  peace 
of  the  coast. 

He  paused  before  the  ruined  facade,  weighing  her 
[69] 


WILD    ORANGES 

statement  that  it  would  have  been  better  if  he  had 
not  returned;  and  he  wondered  how  that  would  af 
fect  her  willingness,  her  ability,  ta  see  him  today. 
He  added  the  word  "ability"  instinctively  and  with 
out  explanation.  And  he  decided  that,  in  order  to 
have  any  satisfactory  speech  with  her,  he  must  come 
upon  her  alone,  away  from  the  house.  Then  he 
could  force  her  to  hear  to  the  finish  what  he  wanted 
to  say;  in  the  open  they  might  escape  from  the  in 
explicable  inhibition  that  lay  upon  her  expres 
sion  of  feeling,  of  desire.  It  would  be  necessary, 
at  the  same  time,  to  avoid  the  notice  of  anyone  who 
would  warn  her  of  his  presence.  This  precluded 
his  waiting  at  the  familiar  place  on  the  rotting 
wharf. 

Three  marble  steps,  awry  and  moldy,  descended 
to  the  lawn  from  a  French  window  in  the  side  of 
the  desolate  mansion.  They  were  screened  by  a 
tangle  of  rose-mallow,  and  there  John  Woolfolk 
seated  himself — waiting. 

The  wind  shrilled  about  the  corner  of  the  house; 
there  was  a  mournful  clatter  of  shingles  from  above 
and  the  frenzied  lashing  of  boughs.  The  noise  was 
so  great  that  he  failed  to  hear  the  slightest  indica 
tion  of  the  approach  of  Nicholas  until  that  individ 
ual  passed  directly  before  him.  Nicholas  stopped 
at  the  inner  fringe  of  the  beach  and,  from  a  point 
where  he  could  not  be  seen  from  the  ketch,  stood 
gazing  out  at  the  Gar  pounding  on  her  long  anchor 
chains.  The  man  remained  for  an  oppressively  ex- 

[70] 


WILD    ORANGES 

tended  period ;  Woolf oik  could  see  his  heavy,  droop 
ing  shoulders  and  sunken  head ;  and  then  the  other 
moved  to  the  left,  crossing  the  rough  open  behind 
the  oleanders.  Woolfolk  had  a  momentary  glimpse 
of  a  huge  nose  and  rapidly  moving  lips  above  an 
impotent  chin. 

Nicholas,  he  realized,  remained  a  complete 
enigma  to  him;  beyond  the  conviction  that  the  man 
was,  in  some  minor  way,  leaden-witted,  he  knew 
nothing. 

A  brief,  watery  ray  of  sunlight  fell  through  a  rift 
in  the  flying  clouds  and  stained  the  tossing  foliage 
pale  gold;  it  was  followed  by  a  sudden  drift  of 
rain,  then  once  more  the  naked  wind.  Woolfolk 
was  fast  determining  to  go  up  to  the  house  and  in 
sist  upon  Millie's  hearing  him,  when  unexpectedly 
she  appeared  in  a  somber,  fluttering  cloak,  with  her 
head  uncovered  and  hair  blown  back  from  her  pale 
brow.  He  waited  until  she  had  passed  him,  and 
then  rose,  softly  calling  her  name. 

She  stopped  and  turned,  with  a  hand  pressed  to 
her  heart.  "I  was  afraid  you'd  gone  out,"  she  told 
him.  "The  sea  is  like  a  pack  of  wolves."  Her 
voice  was  a  low  complexity  of  relief  and  fear. 

"Not  alone,"  he  replied;  "not  without  you." 

"Madness,"  she  murmured,  gathering  her  waver 
ing  cloak  about  her  breast.  She  swayed,  graceful  as 
a  reed  in  the  wind,  charged  with  potency.  He  made 
an  involuntary  gesture  toward  her  with  his  arms; 
but  in  a  sudden  accession  of  fear  she  eluded  him. 

[71] 


WILD    ORANGES 

"We  must  talk/'  he  told  her.  "There  is  a  great 
deal  that  needs  explaining,  that — I  think — I  have 
a  right  to  know,  the  right  of  your  dependence  on 
something  to  save  you  from  yourself.  There  is  an 
other  right,  but  only  you  ran  give  that " 

"Indeed,"  she  interrupted  tensely,  "you  mustn't 
stand  here  talking  to  me." 

"I  shall  allow  nothing  to  interrupt  us,"  he  re 
turned  decidedly.  "I  have  been  long  enough  in  the 
dark." 

"But  you  don't  understand  what  you  will,  per 
haps,  bring  on  yourself — on  me." 
'   "I'm  forced  to  ignore  even  that  last." 

She  glanced  hurriedly  about.  "Not  here  then,  if 
you  must." 

She  walked  from  him,  toward  the  second  ruined 
pile  that  fronted  the  bay.  The  steps  to  the  gaping 
entrance  had  rotted  away  and  they  were  forced  to 
mount  an  insecure  side  piece.  The  interior,  as 
Woolf  oik  had  seen,  was  composed  of  one  high  room, 
while,  above,  a  narrow,  open  second  story  hung  like 
a  ledge.  On  both  sides  were  long  counters  with 
mounting  sets  of  shelves  behind  them. 

"This  was  the  store,"  Millie  told  him.  "It  was  a 
great  estate." 

A  dim  and  moldering  fragment  of  cotton  stuff 
was  hanging  from  a  forgotten  bolt ;  above,  some  tin 
ware  was  eaten  with  rust ;  a  scale  had  crushed  in  the 
floor  and  lay  broken  on  the  earth  beneath;  and  a 
ledger,  its  leaves  a  single,  sodden  film  of  grey,  was 

[72] 


WILD    ORANGES 

still  open  on  a  counter.  A  precarious  stair  mounted 
to  the  flooring  above,  and  Millie  Stope  made  her 
way  upward,  followed  by  Woolfolk. 

There,  in  the  double  gloom  of  the  clouds  and  a 
small  dormer  window  obscured  by  cobwebs,  she 
sank  on  a  broken  box.  The  decayed  walls  shook 
perilously  in  the  blasts  of  the  wind.  Below  they 
could  see  the  empty  floor,  and  through  the  doorway 
the  somber,  gleaming  greenery  without. 

All  the  patient  expostulation  that  John  Woolfolk 
had  prepared  disappeared  in  a  sudden  tyranny  of 
emotion,  of  hunger  for  the  slender,  weary  figure  be 
fore  him.  Seating  himself  at  her  side,  he  burst 
into  a  torrential  expression  of  passionate  desire  that 
mounted  with  the  tide  of  his  eager  words.  He 
caught  her  hands,  held  them  in  a  painful  grip,  and 
gazed  down  into  her  still,  frightened  face.  He 
stopped  abruptly,  was  silent  for  a  tempestuous 
moment,  and  then  baldly  repeated  the  fact  of  his 
love. 

Millie  Stope  said : 

"I  know  so  little  about  the  love  you  mean."  Her 
voice  trailed  to  silence;  and  in  a  lull  of  the  storm 
they  heard  the  thin  patter  of  rats  on  the  floor  below, 
the  stir  of  bats  among  the  rafters. 

"It's  quickly  learned,"  he  assured  her.  "Millie, 
do  you  feel  any  response  at  all  in  your  heart — the 
slightest  return  of  my  longing?" 

"I  don't  know,"  she  answered,  turning  toward  him 
a  troubled  scrutiny.  "Perhaps  in  another  sur- 

[73] 


WILD    ORANGES 

rounding,  with  things  different,  I  might  care  for  you 
very  much " 

"I  am  going  to  take  you  into  that  other  surround 
ing,"  he  announced. 

She  ignored  his  interruption.  "But  we  shall 
never  have  a  chance  to  learn."  She  silenced  his 
attempted  protest  with  a  cool,  flexible  palm  against 
his  mouth.  "Life,"  she  continued,  "is  so  dreadfully 
in  the  dark.  One  is  lost  at  the  beginning.  There  are 
maps  to  take  you  safely  to  the  Guianas,  but  none 

for  souls.  Perhaps  religions  are Again  I  don't 

know.  I  have  found  nothing  secure — only  a 
whirlpool  into  which  I  will  not  drag  others." 

"I  will  drag  you  out,"  he  asserted. 

She  smiled  at  him,  in  a  momentary  tenderness, 
and  continued:  "When  I  was  young  I  never 
doubted  that  I  would  conquer  life.  I  pictured  my 
self  rising  in  triumph  over  circumstance,  as  a  gull 
leaves  the  sea.  .  .  .  When  I  was  young  ...  If 
I  was  afraid  of  the  dark  then  I  thought,  of  course, 
I  would  outgrow  it ;  but  it  has  grown  deeper  than  my 
courage.  The  night  is  terrible  now."  A  shiver 
passed  over  her. 

"You  are  ill,"  he  insisted,  "but  you  shall  be 
cured." 

"Perhaps,  a  year  ago,  something  might  have  been 
done,  with  assistance;  yes — with  you.  Then, 
whatever  is,  hadn't  materialized.  Why  did  you  de 
lay?"  she  cried  in  a  sudden  suffering. 

"You'll  go  with  me  tonight,"  he  declared  stoutly. 
[74] 


WILD    ORANGES 

"In  this?"  She  indicated  the  wind  beating  with 
the  blows  of  a  great  fist  against  the  swaying  sides 
of  the  demolished  store.  "Have  you  seen  the  sea? 
Do  you  remember  what  happened  on  the  day  I  went 
with  you  when  it  was  so  beautiful  and  still?" 

John  Woolfolk  realized,  wakened  to  a  renewed 
mental  clearness  by  the  threatening  of  all  that  he  de 
sired,  that — as  Millie  had  intimated — life  was  too 
complicated  to  be  solved  by  a  simple  longing;  love 
was  not  the  all-powerful  magician  of  conventional 
acceptance;  there  were  other,  no  less  profound, 
depths. 

He  resolutely  abandoned  his  mere  inchoate  want 
ing,  and  considered  the  elements  of  the  position  that 
were  known  to  him.  There  was,  in  the  first  place, 
that  old,  lamentable  dereliction  of  Lichfield  Stope's, 
and  its  aftermath  in  his  daughter.  Millie  had  just 
recalled  to  Woolfolk  the  duration,  the  activity,  of 
its  poison.  Here  there  was  no  possibility  of  escape 
by  mere  removal ;  the  stain  was  within ;  and  it  must 
be  thoroughly  cleansed  before  she  could  cope  suc 
cessfully,  happily,  with  life.  In  this,  he  was  forced 
to  acknowledge,  he  could  help  her  but  little;  it  was 
an  affair  of  spirit;  and  spiritual  values — though 
they  might  be  supported  from  without — had  their 
growth  and  decrease  strictly  in  the  individual  they 
animated. 

Still,  he  argued,  a  normal  existence,  a  sense  of 
security,  would  accomplish  a  great  deal ;  and  that  in 
turn  hung  upon  the  elimination  of  the  second,  un- 

[75] 


WILD    ORANGES 

known  element — the  reason  for  her  backward  glan 
ces,  her  sudden,  loud  banalities,  yesterday's  mechan 
ical  repudiation  of  his  offered  assistance  and  the 
implied  wish  for  him  to  go.  He  said  gravely: 

"I  have  been  impatient,  but  you  came  so  sharply 
into  my  empty  existence  that  I  was  upset.  If  you 
are  ill  you  can  cure  yourself.  Never  forget  your 
mother's  'brave  heart.'  But  there  is  something  ob 
jective,  immediate,  threatening  you.  Tell  me  what 
it  is,  Millie,  and  together  we  will  overcome  and  put 
it  away  from  you  for  ever." 

She  gazed  panic-stricken  into  the  empty  gloom 
below.  "No!  no!"  she  exclaimed,  rising.  "You 
don't  know.  I  won't  drag  you  down.  You  must 
go  away  at  once,  tonight,  even  in  the  storm." 

"What  is  it?"  he  demanded. 

She  stood  rigidly  erect  with  her  eyes  shut  and 
hands  clasped  at  her  sides.  Then  she  slid  down 
upon  the  box,  lifting  to  him  a  white  mask  of  fright. 

"It's  Nicholas,"  she  said,  hardly  above  her 
breath. 

A  sudden  relief  swept  over  John  Woolfolk.  In 
his  mind  he  dismissed  as  negligible  the  heavy  man 
fumbling  beneath  his  soiled  apron.  He  wondered 
how  the  other  could  have  got  such  a  grip  on  Millie 
Stope's  imagination. 

The  mystery  that  had  enveloped  her  was  fast  dis 
appearing,  leaving  them  without  an  obstacle  to  the 
happiness  he  proposed.  Woolfolk  said  curtly: 

"Has  Nicholas  been  annoying  you?" 
[76] 


WILD    ORANGES 

She    shivered,    with    clasped    straining    hands. 

"He  says  he's  crazy  about  me,"  she  told  him  in  a 
shuddering  voice  that  contracted  his  heart.  "He 

says  that  I  must — must  marry  him,  or "  Her 

period  trailed  abruptly  out  to  silence. 

Woolfolk  grew  animated  with  determination,  an 
immediate  purpose. 

"Where  would  Nicholas  be  at  this  hour?"  he 
asked. 

She  rose  hastily,  clinging  to  his  arm.  "You 
mustn't,"  she  exclaimed,  yet  not  loudly.  "You 
don't  know!  He  is  watching  —  something  fright 
ful  would  happen." 

"Nothing  'frightful,' "  he  returned  tolerantly, 
preparing  to  descend.  "Only  unfortunate  for  Nich 
olas." 

"You  mustn't,"  she  repeated  desperately,  her 
sheer  weight  hanging  from  her  hands  clasped  about 
his  neck.  "Nicholas  is  not — not  human.  There's 
something  funny  about  him.  I  don't  mean  funny, 
I " 

He  unclasped  her  fingers  and  quietly  forced  her 
back  to  the  seat  on  the  box.  Then  he  took  a  place 
at  her  side. 

"Now,"  he  asked  reasonably,  "what  is  this  about 
Nicholas?" 

She  glanced  down  into  the  desolate  cavern  of  the 
store;  the  ghostly  remnant  of  cotton  goods  fluttered 
in  a  draft  like  a  torn  and  grimy  cobweb;  the  lower 
floor  was  palpably  bare. 

[77] 


WILD    ORANGES 

"He  came  in  April,"  she  commenced  in  a  voice 
without  any  life.  "The  woman  we  had  had  for 
years  was  dead ;  and  when  Nicholas  asked  for  work 
we  were  glad  to  take  him.  He  wanted  the  smallest 
possible  wages  and  was  willing  to  do  everything ;  he 
even  cooked  quite  nicely.  At  first  he  was  jumpy 
— he  had  asked  if  many  strangers  went  by;  but 
then  when  no  one  appeared  he  got  easier.  ...  He 
got  easier  and  began  to  do  extra  things  for  me.  I 
thanked  him — until  I  understood.  Then  I  asked 
father  to  send  him  away,  but  he  was  afraid;  and, 
before  I  could  get  up  my  courage  to  do  it,  Nicholas 
spoke 

"He  said  he  was  crazy  about  me,  and  would  I 
please  try  and  be  good  to  him.  He  had  always 
wanted  to  marry,  he  went  on,  and  live  right,  but 
things  had  gone  against  him.  I  told  him  that  he 
was  impertinent  and  that  he  would  have  to  go  at 
once;  but  he  cried  and  begged  me  not  to  say  that, 
not  to  get  him  'started. '  " 

That,  John  Woolfolk  recalled,  was  precisely  what 
the  man  had  said  to  him. 

"I  went  back  to  father  and  told  him  why  he  must 
send  Nicholas  off,  but  father  nearly  suffocated.  He 
turned  almost  black.  Then  I  got  frightened  and 
locked  myself  in  my  room,  while  Nicholas  sat  out 
on  the  stair  and  sobbed  all  night.  It  was  ghastly! 
In  the  morning  I  had  to  go  down,  and  he  went  about 
his  duties  as  usual. 

[78] 


WILD    ORANGES 

"That  evening  he  spoke  again,  on  the  porch, 
twisting  his  hands  exactly  as  if  he  were  making 
bread.  He  repeated  that  he  wanted  me  to  be  nice  to 
him.  He  said  something  wrong  would  happen  if  I 
pushed  him  to  it. 

"I  think  if  he  had  threatened  to  kill  me  it  would 
have  been  more  possible  than  his  hints  and  sobs. 
The  thing  went  along  for  a  month,  then  six  weeks, 
and  nothing  more  happened.  I  started  again  and 
again  to  tell  them  at  the  store,  two  miles  back  in  the 
pines,  but  I  could  never  get  away  from  Nicholas; 
he  was  always  at  my  shoulder,  muttering  and  twist 
ing  his  hands. 

"At  last  I  found  something."  She  hesi 
tated,  glancing  once  more  down  through  the  empty 
gloom,  while  her  fingers  swiftly  fumbled  in  the 
band  of  her  waist. 

"I  was  cleaning  his  room — it  simply  had  to  be 
done — and  had  out  a  bureau  drawer,  when  I  saw 
this  underneath.  He  was  not  in  the  house,  and  I 
took  one  look  at  it,  then  put  the  things  back  as  near 
as  possible  as  they  were.  I  was  so  frightened  that 
I  slipped  it  in  my  dress — had  no  chance  to  return  it." 

He  took  from  her  unresisting  hand  a  folded  rect 
angle  of  coarse  grey  paper;  and,  opening  it,  found 
a  small  handbill  with  the  crudely  reproduced  photo 
graph  of  a  man's  head  with  a  long,  drooping  nose, 
sleepy  eyes  in  thick  folds  of  flesh,  and  a  lax  under- 
lip  with  a  fixed,  dull  smile: 

[79] 


WILD    ORANGES 

WANTED  FOR  MURDER  ! 

The  authorities  of  Coweta  offer  THREE 
HUNDRED  DOLLARS  for  the  apprehension  of 
the  below,  Iscah  Nicholas,  convicted  of  the 
murder  of  Elizabeth  Slakto,  an  aged  woman. 

General  description:  Age  about  forty-eight. 
Head  receding,  with  large  nose  and  stupid  ex 
pression.  Body  corpulent  but  strong.  Nich 
olas  has  no  trade  and  works  at  general  utility. 
He  is  a  homicidal  maniac. 

WANTED  FOR  MURDER! 

"He  told  me  that  his  name  was  Nicholas  Brandt," 
Millie  noted  in  her  dull  voice. 

A  new  gravity  possessed  John  Woolfolk. 

"You  must  not  go  back  to  the  house,"  he  decided. 

"Wait,"  she  replied.  "I  was  terribly  frightened 
when  he  went  up  to  his  room.  When  he  came  down 
he  thanked  me  for  cleaning  it.  I  told  him  he  was 
mistaken,  that  I  hadn't  been  in  there,  but  I  could 
see  he  was  suspicious.  He  cried  all  the  time  he  was 
cooking  dinner,  in  a  queer,  choked  way;  and  after 
ward  touched  me — on  the  arm.  I  swam,  but  all 
the  water  in  the  bay  wouldn't  take  away  the  feel  of 
his  fingers.  Then  I  saw  the  boat — you  came 
ashore. 

"Nicholas  was  dreadfully  upset,  and  hid  in  the 
pines  for  a  day  or  more.  He  told  me  if  I  spoke  of 

[80] 


WILD    ORANGES 

him  it  would  happen,  and  if  I  left  it  would  happen 
— to  father.  Then  he  came  back.  He  said  that 
you  were — were  in  love  with  me,  and  that  I  must 
send  you  away.  He  added  that  you  must  go  today, 
for  he  couldn't  stand  waiting  any  more.  He  said 
that  he  wanted  to  be  right,  but  that  things  were 
against  him.  This  morning  he  got  dreadful — if  I 
fooled  him  he'd  get  you,  and  me,  too,  and  then  there 
was  always  father  for  something  extra  special. 
That,  he  warned  me,  would  happen  if  I  stayed 
away  for  more  than  an  hour."  She  rose,  trembling 
violently.  "Perhaps  it's  been  an  hour  now.  I 
must  go  back." 

John  Woolfolk  thought  rapidly;  his  face  was 
grim.  If  he  had  brought  a  pistol  from  the  ketch 
he  would  have  shot  Iscah  Nicholas  without  hesita 
tion.  Unarmed,  he  was  reluctant  to  precipitate  a 
crisis  with  such  serious  possibilities.  He  could  se 
cure  one  from  the  Gar,  but  even  that  short  lapse  of 
time  might  prove  fatal — to  Millie  or  Lichfield 
Stope.  Millie's  story  was  patently  fact  in  every 
detail.  He  thought  more  rapidly  still — desper 
ately. 

"I  must  go  back,"  she  repeated,  her  words  lost 
in  a  sudden  blast  of  wind  under  the  dilapidated 
roof. 

He  saw  that  she  was  right. 

"Very  well,"  he  acquiesced.  "Tell  him  that  you 
saw  me,  and  that  I  promised  to  go  tonight.  Act 
quietly;  say  that  you  have  been  upset,  but  that  you 

[81] 


WILD    ORANGES 

will  give  him  an  answer  tomorrow.  Then  at  eight 
o'clock — it  will  be  dark  early  tonight — walk  out 
to  the  wharf.  That  is  all.  But  it  must  be  done 
without  any  hesitation;  you  must  be  even  cheerful, 
kinder  to  him." 

He  was  thinking:  She  must  be  out  of  the  way 
when  I  meet  Nicholas.  She  must  not  be  subjected 
to  the  ordeal  that  will  release  her  from  the  dread 
fast  crushing  her  spirit. 

She  swayed,  and  he  caught  her,  held  her  upright, 
circled  in  his  steady  arms. 

"Don't  let  him  hurt  us,"  she  gasped.  "Oh, 
don't!" 

"Not  now,"  he  reassurred  her.  "Nicholas  is  fin 
ished.  But  you  must  help  by  doing  exactly  as  I 
have  told  you.  You'd  better  go  on.  It  won't  be 
long,  hardly  three  hours,  until  freedom." 

She  laid  her  cold  cheek  against  his  face,  while  her 
arms  crept  round  his  neck.  She  said  nothing;  and 
he  held  her  to  him  with  a  sudden  throb  of  feeling. 
They  stood  for  a  moment  in  the  deepening  gloom, 
bound  in  a  straining  embrace,  while  the  rats  gnawed 
in  the  sagging  walls  of  the  store  and  the  storm 
thrashed  without.  She  reluctantly  descended  the 
stair,  crossed  the  broken  floor  and  disappeared 
through  the  door. 

A  sudden  unwillingness  to  have  her  return  alone 
to  the  sobbing  menace  of  Iscah  Nicholas,  the  impo 
tent  wraith  that  had  been  Lichfield  Stope,  carried 
him  in  an  impetuous  stride  to  the  stair.  But  there 

[82] 


WILD    ORANGES 

he  halted.  The  plan  he  had  made  held,  in  its 
simplicity,  a  larger  measure  of  safety  than  any 
immediate,  unconsidered  course. 

John  Woolfolk  waited  until  she  had  had  time  to 
enter  the  orange-grove;  then  he  followed,  turning 
toward  the  beach. 

He  found  Halvard  already  at  the  sand's  edge, 
waiting  uneasily  with  the  tender,  and  they  crossed 
the  broken  water  to  where  the  Gar's  cabin  flung  out 
a  remote,  peaceful  light. 


[83] 


THE  sailor  immediately  set  about  his  familiar, 
homely  tasks,  while  Woolfolk  made  a  mi 
nute  inspection  of  the  ketch's  rigging.     He 
descended  to  supper  with  an  expression  of  abstrac 
tion,  and  ate  mechanically  whatever  was  placed  be 
fore  him.     Afterward  he  rolled  a  cigarette,  which 
he  neglected  to  light,  and  sat  motionless,  chin  on 
breast,  in  the  warm  stillness. 

Halvard  cleared  the  table  and  John  Woolfolk 
roused  himself.  He  turned  to  the  shelf  that  ran 
above  the  berths  and  secured  a  small,  locked  tin 
box.  For  an  hour  or  more  he  was  engaged 
alternately  writing  and  carefully  reading  various 
papers  sealed  with  vermilion  wafers.  Then  he 
called  Halvard. 

"I'll  get  you  to  witness  these  signatures,"  he 
said,  rising.  Poul  Halvard  hesitated;  then,  with  a 
furrowed  brow,  clumsily  grasped  the  pen.  "Here," 
Woolfolk  indicated.  The  man  wrote  slowly, 
linking  fortuitously  the  unsteady  letters  of  his  name. 
This  arduous  task  accomplished,  he  immediately 
rose.  John  Woolfolk  again  took  his  place,  turning 
to  address  the  other,  when  he  saw  that  one  side  of 
Halvard's  face  was  bluish  and  rapidly  swelling. 

[84] 


WILD    ORANGES 

"What's  the  matter  with  your  jaw?"  he  promptly 
inquired. 

Halvard  avoided  his  gaze,  obviously  reluctant  to 
speak,  but  Woolfolk's  silent  interrogation  was 
insistent.  Then : 

"I  met  that  Nicholas,"  Halvard  admitted;  "with 
out  a  knife." 

"Well?"  Woolfolk  insisted. 

"There's  something  wrong  with  this  cursed 
place,"  Halvard  said  defiantly.  "You  can  laugh, 
but  there's  a  matter  in  the  air  that's  not  natural. 
My  grandmother  could  have  named  it.  She  heard 
the  ravens  that  called  Tollfsen's  death,  and  read 
Linga's  eyes  before  she  strangulated  herself. 
Anyhow,  when  you  didn't  come  back  I  got  doubtful 
and  took  the  tender  in.  Then  I  saw  Nicholas 
beating  up  through  the  bushes,  hiding  here  and 
there,  and  doubling  through  the  grass;  so  I  came  on 
him  from  the  back  and — and  kicked  him,  quite 
sudden. 

"He  went  on  his  hands,  but  got  up  quick  for  a 
hulk  like  himself.  Sir,  this  is  hard  to  believe,  but 
it's  Biblical — he  didn't  take  any  more  notice  of  the 
kick  than  if  it  had  been  a  flag  halyard  brushed 
against  him.  He  said  'Go  away,'  and  waved  his 
foolish  hands. 

"I  closed  in,  still  careful  of  the  knife,  with  a  re 
mark,  and  got  onto  his  heart.  He  only  coughed 
and  kept  telling  me  in  a  crying  whisper  to  go  away. 
Nicholas  pushed  me  back — that's  how  I  got  this 

[85] 


WILD    ORANGES 

face.  What  was  the  use?  I  might  as  welt  have 
hit  a  pudding.  Even  talk  didn't  move  him.  In 
a  little  it  sent  me  cold."  He  stopped  abruptly,  grew 
sullen ;  it  was  evident  that  he  would  say  no  more  in 
that  direction.  Woolfolk  opened  another  subject: 

"Life,  Halvard,"  he  said,  "is  uncertain;  perhaps 
tonight  I  shall  find  it  absolutely  unreliable.  What 
I  am  getting  at  is  this :  if  anything  happens  to  me — 
death,  to  be  accurate — the  Gar  is  yours,  the  ketch 
and  a  sum  of  money.  It  is  secured  to  you  in  this 
box,  which  you  will  deliver  to  my  address  in  Boston. 
There  is  another  provision  that  I'll  mention  merely 
to  give  you  the  opportunity  to  repeat  it  verbally  from 
my  lips:  the  bulk  of  anything  I  have,  in  the  possi 
bility  we  are  considering,  will  go  to  a  Miss  Stope, 
the  daughter  of  Lichfield  Stope,  formerly  of 
Virginia."  He  stood  up.  "Halvard,"  Woolfolk 
said  abruptly,  extending  his  hand,  expressing  for 
the  first  time  his  repeated  thought,  "you  are  a  good 
man.  You  are  the  only  steady  quantity  I  have  ever 
known.  I  have  paid  you  for  a  part  of  this,  but  the 
most  is  beyond  dollars.  That  I  am  now  acknowl 
edging." 

Halvard  was  cruelly  embarrassed.  He  waited, 
obviously  desiring  a  chance  to  retreat,  and 
Woolfolk  continued  in  a  different  vein: 

"I  want  the  canvas  division  rigged  across  the 
cabin  and  three  berths  made.  Then  get  the  yacht 
ready  to  go  out  at  any  time." 

One  thing  more  remained;  and,  going  deeper  in- 
[86] 


WILD    ORANGES 

to  the  tin  box,  John  Woolfolk  brought  out  a  packet 
of  square  envelopes  addressed  to  him  in  a  faded, 
angular  hand.  They  were  all  that  remained  now 
of  his  youth,  of  the  past.  Not  a  ghost,  not  a 
remembered  fragrance  nor  accent,  rose  from  the 
delicate  paper.  They  had  been  the  property  of  a 
man  dead  twelve  years  ago,  slain  by  incomprehen 
sible  mischance;  and  the  man  in  the  contracted 
cabin,  vibrating  from  the  elemental  and  violent 
forces  without,  forebore  to  open  them.  He  burned 
the  packet  to  a  blackish  ash  on  a  plate. 

It  was,  he  saw  from  the  chronometer,  seven 
o'clock;  and  he  rose  charged  with  tense  energy, 
engaged  in  activities  of  a  far  different  order.  He 
unwrapped  from  many  folds  of  oiled  silk  a  flat, 
amorphous  pistol,  uglier  in  its  bleak  outline  than 
the  familiar  weapons  of  more  graceful  days;  and, 
sliding  into  place  a  filled  cartridge  clip,  he  threw  a 
load  into  the  barrel.  This  he  deposited  in  the 
pocket  of  a  black  wool  jacket,  closely  buttoned 
about  his  long,  hard  body,  and  went  up  on  deck. 

Halvard,  in  a  glistening  yellow  coat,  came  close 
up  to  him,  speaking  with  the  wind  whipping  the 
words  from  his  lips.  He  said:  "She's  ready,  sir." 

For  a  moment  Woolfolk  made  no  answer;  he 
stood  gazing  anxiously  into  the  dark  that  enveloped 
and  hid  Millie  Stope  from  him.  There  was  another 
darkness  about  her,  thicker  than  the  mere  night,  like 
a  black  cerement  dropping  over  her  soul.  His  eyes 
narrowed  as  he  replied  to  the  sailor:  "Good! " 

[87] 


XI 


JOHN  WOOLFOLK  peered  through  the  night 
toward  the  land. 
"Put  me  ashore  beyond  the  point,"  he  told 
Halvard;  "at  a  half-sunk  wharf  on  the  sea." 

The  sailor  secured  the  tender,  and,  dropping  into 
it,  held  the  small  boat  steady  while  Woolfolk 
followed.  With  a  vigorous  push  they  fell  away 
from  the  Gar.  Halyard's  oars  struck  the  water 
smartly  and  forced  the  tender  forward  into  the 
beating  wind.  They  made  a  choppy  passage  to  the 
rim  of  the  bay,  where,  turning,  they  followed  the 
thin,  pale  glimmer  of  the  broken  water  on  the  land's 
edge.  Halvard  pulled  with  short,  telling  strokes, 
his  oarblades  stirring  into  momentary  being  livid 
blurs  of  phosphorescence. 

John  Woolfolk  guided  the  boat  about  the  point 
where  he  had  first  seen  Millie  swimming.  He  re 
called  how  strange  her  unexpected  appearance  had 
seemed.  It  had,  however,  been  no  stranger  than 
the  actuality  which  had  driven  her  into  the  bay  in 
the  effort  to  cleanse  the  stain  of  Iscah  Nicholas' 
touch.  Woolf oik's  face  hardened;  he  was  suddenly 
conscious  of  the  cold  weight  in  his  pocket.  He 

[88] 


WILD    ORANGES 

realized  that  he  would  kill  Nicholas  at  the  first  op 
portunity  and  without  the  slightest  hesitation. 

The  tender  passed  about  the  point,  and  he  could 
hear  more  clearly  the  sullen  clamor  of  the  waves  on 
the  seaward  bars.  The  patches  of  green  sky  had 
grown  larger,  the  clouds  swept  by  with  the  apparent 
menace  of  solid,  flying  objects.  The  land  lay  in  a 
low,  formless  mass  on  the  left.  It  appeared 
secretive,  a  masked  place  of  evil.  Its  influence 
reached  out  and  subtly  touched  John  Woolf oik's 
heart  with  the  premonition  of  base  treacheries.  The 
tormented  trees  had  the  sound  of  Iscah  Nicholas 
sobbing.  He  must  take  Millie  away  immediately; 
banish  its  last  memory  from  her  mind,  its  influence 
from  her  soul.  It  was  the  latter  he  always  feared, 
which  formed  his  greatest  hazard — to  tear  from  her 
the  tendrils  of  the  invidious  past. 

The  vague  outline  of  the  ruined  wharf  swam  for 
ward,  and  the  tender  slid  into  the  comparative  quiet 
of  its  partial  protection. 

"Make  -fast,"  Woolfolk  directed.  "I  shall  be  out 
of  the  boat  for  a  while."  He  hesitated;  then: 
"Miss  Stope  will  be  here;  and  if,  after  an  hour,  you 
hear  nothing  from  me,  take  her  out  to  the  ketch  for 
the  night.  Insist  on  her  going.  If  you  hear 
nothing  from  me  still,  make  the  first  town  and 
report." 

He  mounted  by  a  cross  pinning  to  the  insecure 
surface  above;  and,  picking  his  way  to  solid  earth, 
waited.  He  struck  a  match  and,  covering  the  light 

[89] 


WILD    ORANGES 

with  his  palm,  saw  that  it  was  ten  minutes  before 
eight.  Millie,  he  had  thought,  would  reach  the 
wharf  before  the  hour  he  had  indicated.  She 
would  not  at  any  cost  be  late. 

The  night  was  impenetrable.  Halvard  was  as 
absolutely  lost  as  if  he  had  dropped,  with  all  the 
world  save  the  bare,  wet  spot  where  Woolfolk  stood, 
into  a  nether  region  from  which  floated  up  great, 
shuddering  gasps  of  agony.  He  followed  this  idea 
more  minutely,  picturing  the  details  of  such  a 
terrestrial  calamity;  then  he  put  it  from  him  with  an 
oath.  Black  thoughts  crept  insidiously  into  his 
mind  like  rats  in  a  cellar.  He  had  ordinarily  a 
rigidly  disciplined  brain,  an  incisive  logic,  and  he 
was  disturbed  by  the  distorted  visions  that  came  to 
him  unbidden.  He  wished,  in  a  momentary  panic, 
instantly  suppressed,  that  he  were  safely  away  with 
Millie  in  the  ketch. 

He  was  becoming  hysterical,  he  told  himself  with 
compressed  lips — no  better  than  Lichfield  Stope. 
The  latter  rose  greyly  in  his  memory,  and  fled  across 
the  sea,  a  phantom  body  pulsing  with  a  veined  fire 
like  that  stirred  from  the  nocturnal  bay.  He  again 
consulted  his  watch,  and  said  aloud,  incredulously: 
"Five  minutes  past  eight."  The  inchoate  crawling 
of  his  thoughts  changed  to  an  acute,  tangible  doubt, 
a  mounting  dread. 

He  rehearsed  the  details  of  his  plan,  tried  it  at 
every  turning.  It  had  seemed  to  him  at  the  moment 
of  its  birth  the  best — no,  the  only — thing  to  do, 

[90] 


WILD    ORANGES 

and  it  was  still  without  obvious  fault.  Some  trivial 
happening,  an  unforeseen  need  of  her  father's,  had 
delayed  Millie  for  a  minute  or  two.  But  the 
minutes  increased  and  she  did  not  appear.  All  his 
conflicting  emotions  merged  into  a  cold  passion  of 
anger.  He  would  kill  Nicholas  without  a  word's 
preliminary.  The  time  drew  out,  Millie  did  not 
materialize,  and  his  anger  sank  to  the  realization  of 
appalling  possibilities. 

He  decided  that  he  would  wait  no  longer.  In 
the  act  of  moving  forward  he  thought  he  heard, 
rising  thinly  against  the  fluctuating  wind,  a  sudden 
cry.  He  stopped  automatically,  listening  with  every 
nerve,  but  there  was  no  repetition  of  the  uncertain 
sound.  As  Woolfolk  swiftly  considered  it  he  was 
possessed  by  the  feeling  that  he  had  not  heard  the 
cry  with  his  actual  ear  but  with  a  deeper,  more 
unaccountable  sense.  He  went  forward  in  a  blind 
rush,  feeling  with  extended  hands  for  the  opening 
in  the  tangle,  groping  a  stumbling  way  through  the 
close  dark  of  the  matted  trees.  He  fell  over  an  ex 
posed  root,  blundered  into  a  chill,  wet  trunk,  and 
finally  emerged  at  the  side  of  the  desolate  mansion. 
Here  his  way  led  through  saw  grass,  waist  high,  and 
the  blades  cut  at  him  like  lithe,  vindictive  knives. 
No  light  showed  from  the  face  of  the  house  toward 
him,  and  he  came  abruptly  against  the  bay  window 
of  the  dismantled  billiard  room. 

A  sudden  caution  arrested  him — the  sound  of  his 
approach  might  precipitate  a  catastrophe,  and  he 

[91] 


WILD    ORANGES 

soundlessly  felt  his  passage  about  the  house  to  the 
portico.  The  steps  creaked  beneath  his  careful 
tread,  but  the  noise  was  lost  in  the  wind.  At  first 
he  could  see  no  light;  the  hall  door,  he  discovered, 
was  closed;  then  he  was  aware  of  a  faint  glimmer 
seeping  through  a  drawn  window  shade  on  the  right. 
From  without  he  could  distinguish  nothing.  He 
listened,  but  not  a  sound  rose.  The  stillness  was 
more  ominous  than  cries. 

John  Woolfolk  took  the  pistol  from  his  pocket 
and,  automatically  releasing  the  safety,  moved  to 
the  door,  opening  it  with  his  left  hand.  The  hall 
was  unlighted;  he  could  feel  the  pressure  of  the 
darkness  above.  The  dank  silence  flowed  over  him 
like  chill  water  rising  above  his  heart.  He  turned, 
and  a  dim  thread  of  light,  showing  through  the 
chink  of  a  partly  closed  doorway,  led  him  swiftly 
forward.  He  paused  a  moment  before  entering, 
shrinking  from  what  might  be  revealed  beyond,  and 
then  flung  the  door  sharply  open. 

His  pistol  was  directed  at  a  low-trimmed  lamp  in 
a  chamber  empty  of  all  life.  He  saw  a  row  of 
large  black  portfolios  on  low  supports,  a  sewing  bag 
spilled  its  contents  from  a  chair,  a  table  bore  a  tin 
tobacco  jar  and  the  empty  skin  of  a  plantain.  Then 
his  gaze  rested  upon  the  floor,  on  a  thin,  inanimate 
body  in  crumpled  alpaca  trousers  and  dark  jacket, 
with  a  peaked,  congested  face  upturned  toward  the 
pale  light.  It  was  Lichfield  Stope — dead. 

Woolfolk  bent  over  him,  searching  for  a  mark  of 
[92] 


WILD    ORANGES 

violence,  for  the  cause  of  the  other's  death.  At  first 
he  found  nothing;  then,  as  he  moved  the  body — its 
lightness  came  to  him  as  a  shock — he  saw  that  one 
fragile  arm  had  been  twisted  and  broken;  the  hand 
hung  like  a  withered  autumn  leaf  from  its  circular 
cuff  fastened  with  the  mosaic  button.  That  was  all. 

He  straightened  up  sharply,  with  his  pistol 
levelled  at  the  door.  But  there  had  been  no  noise 
other  than  that  of  the  wind  plucking  at  the  old  tin 
roof,  rattling  the  shrunken  frames  of  the  windows. 
Lichfield  Stope  had  fallen  back  with  his  countenance 
lying  on  a  doubled  arm,  as  if  he  were  attempting  to 
hide  from  his  extinguished  gaze  the  horror  of  his 
end.  The  lamp  was  of  the  common  glass  variety, 
without  shade;  and,  in  a  sudden  eddy  of  air,  it 
flickered,  threatened  to  go  out,  and  a  thin  ribbon  of 
smoke  swept  up  against  the  chimney  and  vanished. 

On  the  wall  was  a  wide  stipple  print  of  the  early 
nineteenth  century — the  smooth  sward  of  a  village 
glebe  surrounded  by  the  low  stone  walls  of  ancient 
dwellings,  with  a  timbered  inn  behind  broad  oaks 
and  a  swinging  sign.  It  was — in  the  print — se 
renely  evening,  and  long  shadows  slipped  out 
through  an  ambient  glow.  Woolfolk,  with  pistol 
elevated,  became  suddenly  conscious  of  the  with 
drawn  scene,  and  for  a  moment  its  utter  peace  held 
him  spellbound.  It  was  another  world,  for  the  se 
curity,  the  unattainable  repose  of  which,  he  longed 
with  a  passionate  bitterness. 

The  wind  shifted  its  direction  and  beat  upon  the 
[93] 


WILD    ORANGES 

front  of  the  house;  a  different  set  of  windows 
rattled,  and  the  blast  swept  compact  and  cold  up 
through  the  blank  hall.  John  Woolfolk  cursed  his 
inertia  of  mind,  and  once  more  addressed  the  pro 
found,  tragic  mystery  that  surrounded  him. 

He  thought:  Nicholas  has  gone — with  Millie. 
Or  perhaps  he  has  left  her — in  some  dark,  upper 
space.  A  maddening  sense  of  impotence  settled  up 
on  him.  If  the  man  had  taken  Millie  out  into  the 
night  he  had  no  chance  of  following,  finding  them. 
Impenetrable  screens  of  bushes  lay  on  every  hand, 
with,  behind  them,  mile  after  mile  of  shrouded  pine 
woods. 

His  plan  had  gone  terribly  amiss,  with  possi 
bilities  which  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  face. 
All  that  had  happened  before  in  his  life,  and  that 
had  seemed  so  insupportable  at  the  time,  faded  to 
insignificance.  Shuddering  waves  of  horror  swept 
over  him.  He  raised  his  hand  unsteadily,  drew  it 
across  his  brow,  and  it  came  away  dripping  wet. 
He  was  oppressed  by  the  feeling  familiar  in  evil 
dreams — of  gazing  with  leaden  limbs  at  deliberate, 
unspeakable  acts. 

He  shook  off  the  numbness  of  dread.  He  must 
act— at  once!  How?  A  thousand  men  could 
not  find  Iscah  Nicholas  in  the  confused  darkness 
without.  To  raise  the  scattered  and  meager 
neighborhood  would  consume  an  entire  day. 

The  wind  agitated  a  rocking  chair  in  the  hall,  an 
[94] 


WILD    ORANGES 

erratic  creaking  responded,  and  Woolfolk  started 
forward,  and  stopped  as  he  heard  and  then  iden 
tified  the  noise.  This,  he  told  himself,  would  not 
do;  the  hysteria  was  creeping  over  him  again.  He 
shook  his  shoulders,  wiped  his  palm  and  took  a 
fresh  grip  on  the  pistol. 

Then  from  above  came  the  heavy,  unmistakable 
fall  of  a  foot.  It  was  not  repeated;  the  silence 
spread  once  more,  broken  only  from  without.  But 
there  was  no  possibility  of  mistake,  there  had  been 
no  subtlety  in  tffe  sound — a  slow  foot  had  moved,  a 
heavy  body  had  shifted. 

At  this  actuality  a  new  determination  seized  him ; 
he  was  conscious  of  a  feeling  that  almost  resembled 
joy,  an  immeasurable  relief  at  the  prospect  of  action 
and  retaliation.  He  took  up  the  lamp,  held  it 
elevated  while  he  advanced  to  the  door  with  a  ready 
pistol.  There,  however,  he  stopped,  realizing  the 
mark  he  would  present  moving,  conveniently  illu 
minated,  up  the  stair.  The  floor  above  was  totally 
unknown  to  him;  at  any  turning  he  might  be  sur 
prised,  overcome,  rendered  useless.  He  had  a  su 
preme  purpose  to  perform.  He  had  already,  per 
haps  fatally,  erred,  and  there  must  be  no  further 
misstep. 

John  Woolfolk  realized  that  he  must  go  upstairs 
in  the  dark,  or  with,  at  most,  in*extreme  necessity,  a 
fleeting  and  guarded  matchlight.  This,  too,  since  he 
would  be  entirely  without  knowledge  of  his 

[95] 


WILD    ORANGES 

surroundings,  would  be  inconvenient,  perhaps  im 
possible.  He  must  try.  He  put  the  lamp  back  up 
on  the  table,  moving  it  farther  out  of  the  eddy  from 
the  door,  where  it  would  stay  lighted  against  a 
possible  pressing  need.  Then  he  moved  from  the 
wan  radiance  into  the  night  of  the  hall. 


[96] 


XII 


HE  formed  in  his  mind  the  general  aspect  of 
the  house:  its  width  faced  the  orange 
grove,  the  stair  mounted  on  the  hall's 
right,  in  back  of  which  a  door  gave  to  the  billiard 
room;  on  the  left  was  the  chamber  of  the  lamp,  and 
that,  he  had  seen,  opened  into  a  room  behind,  while 
the  kitchen  wing,  carried  to  a  chamber  above,  had 
been  obviously  added.  It  was  probable  that  he 
would  find  the  same  general  arrangement  on  the 
second  floor.  The  hall  would  be  smaller;  a  space 
inclosed  for  a  bath;  and  a  means  of  ascent  to  the 
roof. 

John  Woolfolk  mounted  the  stair  quickly  and  as 
silently  as  possible,  placing  his  feet  squarely  on  the 
body  of  the  steps.  At  the  top  the  handrail  disap 
peared  ;  and,  with  his  back  to  a  plaster  wall,  he 
moved  until  he  encountered  a  closed  door.  That 
interior  was  above  the  billiard  room;  it  was  on  the 
opposite  floor  he  had  heard  the  footfall,  and  he  was 
certain  that  no  one  had  crossed  the  hall  or  closed  a 
door.  He  continued,  following  the  dank  wall.  At 
places  the  plaster  had  fallen,  and  his  fingers  en 
countered  the  bare  skeleton  of  the  house.  Farther 
on  he  narrowly  escaped  knocking  down  a  heavily 

[97] 


WILD    ORANGES 

framed  picture — another,  he  thought,  of  Lichfield 
Stope's  mezzotints — but  he  caught  it,  left  it  hanging 
crazily  awry. 

He  passed  an  open  door,  recognized  the  bathroom 
from  the  flat  odor  of  chlorides,  reached  an  angle  of 
the  wall  and  proceeded  with  renewed  caution. 
Next  he  encountered  the  cold  panes  of  a  window  and 
then  found  the  entrance  to  the  room  above  the 
kitchen.  , 

He  stopped — it  was  barely  possible  that  the 
sound  he  heard  had  echoed  from  here.  He  re 
volved  the  wisdom  of  a  match,  but — he  had  pro 
gressed  very  well  so  far — decided  negatively.  One 
aspect  of  the  situation  troubled  him  greatly — the 
absence  of  any  sound  or  warning  from  Millie.  It 
was  highly  improbable  that  his  entrance  to  the  house 
had  been  unnoticed.  The  contrary  was  probable — 
that  his  sudden  appearance  had  driven  Nicholas 
above. 

Woolfolk  started  forward  more  hurriedly,  urged 
by  his  increasing  apprehension,  when  his  foot  went 
into  the  opening  of  a  depressed  step  and  flung  him 
sharply  forward.  In  his  instinctive  effort  to  avoid 
falling  the  pistol  dropped  clattering  into  the  dark 
ness.  A  sudden  choked  cry  sounded  beside  him, 
and  a  heavy,  enveloping  body  fell  on  his  back. 
This  sent  him  reeling  against  the  wall,  where  he 
felt  the  muscles  of  an  unwieldly  arm  tighten  about 
his  neck. 

John  Woolfolk  threw  himself  back,  when  a  wrist 
[98] 


WILD    ORANGES 

heavily  struck  his  shoulder  and  a  jarring  blow  fell 
upon  th'e  wall.  The  hand,  he  knew,  had  held  a 
knife,  for  he  could  feel  it  groping  desperately  over 
the  plaster,  and  he  put  all  his  strength  into  an  ef 
fort  to  drag  his  assailant  into  the  middle  of  the  floor. 

It  was  impossible  now  to  recover  his  pistol,  but 
he  would  make  it  difficult  for  Nicholas  to  get  the 
knife.  The  struggle  in  that  way  was  equalized. 
He  turned  in  the  gripping  arms  about  him  and  the 
men  were  chest  to  chest.  Neither  spoke ;  each  fought 
solely  to  get  the  other  prostrate,  while  Nicholas  de 
veloped  a  secondary  pressure  toward  the  blade 
buried  in  the  wall.  This  Woolfolk  successfully 
blocked.  In  the  supreme  effort  to  bring  the  strug 
gle  to  a  decisive  end  neither  dealt  the  other  minor 
injuries.  There  were  no  blows — nothing  but  the 
straining  pull  of  arms,  the  sudden  weight  of  bodies, 
the  cunning  twisting  of  legs.  They  fought  swiftly, 
whirling  and  staggering  from  place  to  place. 

The  hot  breath  of  an  invisible  gaping  mouth  "beat 
upon  Woolfolk's  cheek.  He  was  an  exceptionally 
powerful  man.  His  spare  body  had  been  hardened 
by  its  years  of  exposure  to  the  elements,  in  the  con 
stant  labor  he  had  expended  on  the  ketch,  the  long 
contests  with  adverse  winds  and  seas,  and  he  had 
little  doubt  of  his  issuing  successful  from  the  pres 
ent  crisis.  Iscah  Nicholas,  though  his  strength 
was  beyond  question,  was  heavy  and  slow.  Yet 
he  was  struggling  with  surprising  agility.  He  was 
animated  by  a  convulsive  energy,  a  volcanic  out- 

[99] 


WILD    ORANGES 

burst  characteristic  of  the  obsession  of  monomania. 

The  strife  continued  for  an  astonishing,  an 
absurd,  length  of  time.  Woolfolk  became  infu 
riated  at  his  inability  to  bring  it  to  an  end,  and  he 
expended  an  even  greater  effort.  Nicholas7  arms 
were  about  his  chest;  he  was  endeavoring  by  sheer 
pressure  to  crush  Woolfolk's  opposition,  when  the 
latter  injected  a  mounting  wrath  into  the  conflict. 
They  spun  in  the  open  like  a  grotesque  human  top, 
and  fell.  Woolfolk  was  momentarily  underneath, 
but  he  twisted  lithely  uppermost.  He  felt  a  heavy, 
blunt  hand  leave  his  arm  and  feel,  in  the  dark,  for 
his  face.  Its  purpose  was  to  spoil,  and  he  caught  it 
and  savagely  bent  it  down  and  back;  but  a  cruel 
forcing  of  his  leg  defeated  his  purpose. 

This,  he  realized,  could  not  go  on  indefinitely; 
one  or  the  other  would  soon  weaken.  An  insidious 
doubt  of  his  ultimate  victory  lodged  like  a  burr  in 
his  brain.  Nicholas'  strength  was  inhuman;  it  in 
creased  rather  than  waned.  He  was  growing  vin 
dictive  in  a  petty  way — he  tore  at  Woolfolk's 
throat,  dug  the  flesh  from  his  lower  arm.  There 
after  warm  and  gummy  blood  made  John  Wool- 
folk's  grip  insecure. 

The  doubt  of  his  success  grew;  he  fought  more 
desperately.  His  thoughts,  which  till  now  had  been 
clear,  logically  aloof,  were  blurred  in  blind  spurts 
of  passion.  His  mentality  gradually  deserted  him ; 
he  reverted  to  lower  and  lower  types  of  the  human 
animal;  during  the  accumulating  seconds  of  the 

[100] 


WILD    ORANGES 

strife  he  swung  back  througli  cbtnitless  centimes 
to  the  primitive,  snarling  brute.  His  shirt  was 
torn  from  a  shoulder,  and  he  felt  the  sweating, 
bare  skin  of  his  opponent  pressed  against  him. 

The  conflict  continued  without  diminishing.  He 
struggled  once  more  to  his  feet,  with  Nicholas,  and 
they  exchanged  battering  blows,  dealt  necessarily 
at  random.  Sometimes  his  arm  swept  violently 
through  mere  space,  at  others  his  fist  landed  with  a 
satisfying  shock  on  the  body  of  his  antagonist.  The 
dark  was  occasionally  crossed  by  flashes  before 
Woolfolk's  smitten  eyes,  but  no  actual  light  pierced 
the  profound  night  of  the  upper  hall.  At  times 
their  struggle  grew  audible,  smacking  blows  fell 
sharply;  but  there  was  no  other  sound  except  that 
of  the  wind  tearing  at  the  sashes,  thundering  dully 
in  the  loose  tin  roof,  rocking  the  dwelling. 

They  fell  again,  and  equally  their  efforts  slack 
ened,  their  grips  became  more  feeble.  Finally,  as 
if  by  common  consent,  they  rolled  apart.  A  leaden 
tide  of  apathy  crept  over  Woolfolk's  battered  body, 
folded  his  aching  brain.  He  listened  in  a  sort  of 
indifferent  attention  to  the  tempestuous  breathing 
of  Iscah  Nicholas.  John  Woolfolk  wondered  dully 
where  Millie  was.  There  had  been  no  sign  of  her 
since  he  had  fallen  down  the  step  and  she  had 
cried  out.  Perhaps  she  was  dead  from  fright. 
He  Considered  this  possibility  in  a  hazy,  detached 
manner.  She  would  be  better  dead — if  he  failed. 

He  heard,  with  little  interest,  a  stirring  on  the 
[101] 


WILD    ORANGES 

floor  beside  him/  arid  thought  with  an  overwhelm 
ing  weariness  and  distaste  that  the  strife  was  to  com 
mence  once  more.  But,  curiously,  Nicholas  moved 
away  from  him.  Woolfolk  was  glad;  and  then  he 
was  puzzled  for  a  moment  by  the  sliding  of  hands 
over  an  invisible  wall.  He  slowly  realized  that  the 
other  was  groping  for  the  knife  he  had  buried  in  the 
plaster.  John  Woolfolk  considered  a  similar 
search  for  the  pistol  he  had  dropped ;  he  might  even 
light  a  match.  It  was  a  rather  wonderful  weapon 
and  would  spray  lead  like  a  hose  of  water.  He 
would  like  exceedingly  well  to  have  it  in  his  hand 
with  Nicholas  before  him. 

Then  in  a  sudden  mental  illumination  he  real 
ized  the  extreme  peril  of  the  moment;  and,  lurch 
ing  to  his  feet,  he  again  threw  himself  on  the  other. 

The  struggle  went  on,  apparently  to  infinity;  it 
was  less  vigorous  now;  the  blows,  for  the  most  part, 
were  impotent.  Iscah  Nicholas  never  said  a  word ; 
and  fantastic  thoughts  wheeled  through  Woolfolk's 
brain.  He  lost  all  sense  of  the  identity  of  his  op 
ponent  and  became  convinced  that  he  was  combat 
ing  an  impersonal  hulk — the  thing  that  gasped  and 
smeared  his  face,  that  strove  to  end  him,  was  the 
embodied  and  evil  spirit  of  the  place,  a  place  that 
even  HalvUrd  had  seen  was  damnably  wrong.  He 
questioned  if  such  a  force  could  be  killed,  if  a  being 
materialized  from  the  outer  dark  could  be  stopped 
by  a  pistol  of  even  the  latest,  most  ingenious 
mechanism. 

[102] 


WILD    ORANGES 

They  fell  and  rose,  and  fell.  Woolfolk's  fingers 
were  twisted  in  a  damp  lock  of  hair;  they  came 
away — with  the  hair.  He  moved  to  his  knees, 
and  the  other  followed.  For  a  moment  they  rested 
face  to  face,  with  arms  limply  clasped  about  the 
opposite  shoulders.  Then  they  turned  over  on  the 
floor ;  they  turned  once  more,  and  suddenly  the  dark 
ness  was  empty  beneath  John  Woolfolk.  He  fell 
down  and  down,  beating  his  head  on  a  series  of 
sharp  edges;  while  a  second,  heavy  body  fell  with 
him,  by  turns  under  and  above. 


[103] 


XIII 


HE  rose  with  the  ludicrous  alacrity  of  a 
man  who  had  taken  a  public  and  awk 
ward  misstep.  The  wan  lamplight,  dif 
fused  from  within,  made  just  visible  the  bulk  that 
had  descended  with  him.  It  lay  without  motion, 
sprawling  upon  a  lower  step  and  the  floor.  John 
Woolfolk  moved  backward  from  it,  his  hand  behind 
him,  feeling  for  the  entrance  to  the  lighted  room. 
He  shifted  his  feet  carefully,  for  the  darkness  was 
wheeling  about  him  in  visible  black  rings  streaked 
with  pale  orange  as  he  passed  into  the  room. 

Here  objects,  dimensions,  became  normally 
placed,  recognizable.  He  saw  the  mezzotint  with 
its  sere  and  sunny  peace,  the  portfolios  on  their 
stands,  like  grotesque  and  flattened  quadrupeds, 
and  Lichfield  Stope  on  the  floor,  still  hiding  his 
dead  face  in  the  crook  of  his  arm. 

He  saw  these  things,  remembered  them,  and  yet 
now  they  had  new  significance — they  oozed  a  sort 
of  vital  horror,  they  seemed  to  crawl  with  a  malig 
nant  and  repulsive  life.  The  entire  room  was 
charged  with  this  palpable,  sentient  evil.  John 
Woolfolk  defiantly  faced  the  still,  cold  inclosure; 
he  was  conscious  of  an  unseen  scrutiny,  of  a  men- 

[104] 


WILD    ORANGES 

ace  that  lived  in  pictures,  moved  the  fingers  of  the 
dead,  and  that  could  take  actual  bulk  and  pound 
his  heart  sore. 

He  was  not  afraid  of  the  wrongness  that  inhabited 
this  muck  of  house  and  grove  and  matted  bush. 
He  said  this  loudly  to  the  prostrate  form;  then, 
waiting  a  little,  repeated  it.  He  would  smash 
the  print  with  its  fallacious  expanse  of  peace.  The 
broken  glass  of  the  smitten  picture  jingled  thinly  on 
the  floor.  Woolfolk  turned  suddenly  and  defeated 
the  purpose  of  whatever  had  been  stealthily  behind 
him;  anyway  it  had  disappeared.  He  stood  in  a 
strained  attitude,  listening  to  the  aberrations 
of  the  wind  without,  when  an  actual  presence 
slipped  by  him,  stopping  in  the  middle  of  the 
floor. 

It  was  Millie  Stope.  Her  eyes  were  opened  to 
their  widest  extent,  but  they  had  the  peculiar  blank 
fixity  of  the  eyes  of  the  blind.  Above  them  her  hair 
slipped  and  slid  in  a  loosened  knot. 

"I  had  to  walk  round  him,"  she  protested  in  a  low, 
fluctuating  voice,  " there  was  no  other  way.  .  .  . 

Right  by  his  head.     My  skirt "  She  broke  off 

and,  shuddering,  came  close  to  John  Woolfolk. 
"I  think  we'd  better  go  away,"  she  told  him,  nod 
ding.  "It's  quite  impossible  here,  with  him  in  the 
hall,  where  you  have  to  pass  so  close." 

Woolfolk  drew  back  from  her.  She  too  was  a 
part  of  the  house;  she  had  led  him  there — a  white 
flame  that  he  had  followed  into  the  swamp.  And 

[105] 


WILD    ORANGES 

this  was  no  ordinary  marsh.  It  was,  he  added 
aloud,  "A  swamp  of  souls." 

"Then,"  she  replied,  "we  must  leave  at  once." 

A  dragging  sound  rose  from  the  hall.  Millie 
Stope  cowered  in  a  voiceless  accession  of  terror;  but 
John  Woolfolk,  lamp  in  hand,  moved  to  the  door. 
He  was  curious  to  see  exactly  what  was  happening. 
The  bulk  had  risen;  a  broad  back  swayed  like  a 
pendulum,  and  a  swollen  hand  gripped  the  stair 
rail.  The  form  heaved  itself  up  a  step,  paused, 
tottering,  and  then  mounted  again.  Woolfolk  saw 
at  once  that  the  other  was  going  for  the  knife  buried 
in  the  wall  above.  He  watched  with  an  impersonal 
interest  the  dragging  ascent.  At  the  seventh  step 
it  ceased;  the  figure  crumpled,  slid  halfway  back 
to  the  floor. 

"You  can't  do  at,"  Woolfolk  observed  criti 
cally. 

The  other  sat  bowed,  with  one  leg  extended  stiffly 
downward,  on  the  stair  that  mounted  from  the  pale 
radiance  of  the  lamp  into  impenetrable  darkness. 
Woolfolk  moved  back  into  the  room  and  replaced 
the  lamp  on  its  table.  Millie  Stope  still  stood  with 
open,  hanging  hands,  a  countenance  of  expectant 
dread.  Her  eyes  did  not  shift  from  the  door  as  he 
entered  and  passed  her;  her  gaze  hung  starkly  on 
what  might  emerge  from  the  hall. 

A  deep  loathing  of  his  surroundings  swept  over 
John  Woolfolk,  a  sudden  revulsion  from  the  dead 
man  on  the  floor,  from  the  ponderous  menace  on 

[106] 


WILD    ORANGES 

the  stair,  the  white  figure  that  had  brought  it  all 
upon  him.  A  mounting  horror  of  the  place  pos 
sessed  him,  and  he  turned  and  incontinently  fled. 
A  complete  panic  enveloped  him  at  his  flight,  a  blind 
necessity  to  get  away,  and  he  ran  heedlessly  through 
the  night,  with  head  up  and  arms  extended.  His 
feet  struck  upon  a  rotten  fragment  of  board  that 
broke  beneath  him,  he  pushed  through  a  tangle  of 
grass,  and  then  his  progress  was  held  by  soft  and 
dragging  sand.  A  moment  later  he  was  halted 
by  a  chill  flood  rising  abruptly  to  his  knees.  He 
drew  back  sharply  and  fell  on  the  beach,  with  his 
heels  in  the  water  of  the  bay. 

An  insuperable  weariness  pinned  him  down,  a 
complete  exhaustion  of  brain  and  body.  A  heavy 
wind  struck  like  a  wet  cloth  on  his  face.  The  sky 
had  been  swept  clear  of  clouds,  and  stars  sparkled 
in  the  pure  depths  of  the  night.  They  were  white, 
with  the  exception  of  one  that  burned  with  an  un 
steady  yellow  ray  and  seemed  close  by.  This,  John 
Woolfolk  thought,  was  strange.  He  concentrated  a 
frowning  gaze  upon  it — perhaps  in  falling  into  the 
soiled  atmosphere  of  the  earth  it  had  lost  its  crystal 
gleam  and  burned  with  a  turgid  light.  It  was  very, 
very  probable. 

He  continued  to  watch  it,  facing  the  tonic  wind, 
until  with  a  clearing  of  his  mind,  a  gasp  of  joyful 
recognition,  he  knew  that  it  was  the  riding  light  of 
the  Gar. 

Woolfolk  sat  very  still  under  the  pressure  of  his 
[107] 


WILD    ORANGES 

renewed  sanity.  Fact  upon  fact,  memory  on  mem 
ory,  returned,  and  in  proper  perspective  built  up 
again  his  mentality,  his  logic,  his  scattered  powers 
of  being.  The  Gar  rode  uneasily  on  her  anchor 
chains;  the  wind  was  shifting.  They  must  get 
away! — Halvard,  waiting  at  the  wharf — 
Millie 

He  rose  hurriedly  to  his  feet — he  had  deserted 
Millie;  left  her,  in  all  her  anguish,  with  her  dead 
parent  and  Iscah  Nicholas.  His  love  for  her  swept 
back,  infinitely  heightened  by  the  knowledge  of  her 
suffering.  At  the  same  time  there  returned  the 
familiar  fear  of  a  permanent  disarrangement  in  her 
of  chords  that  were  unresponsive  to  the  clumsy  ex 
pedients  of  affection  and  science.  She  had  been 
subjected  to  a  strain  that  might  well  unsettle  a  rel 
atively  strong  will;  and  she  had  been  fragile  in  the 
beginning. 

She  must  be  a  part  of  no  more  scenes  of  violence, 
he  told  himself,  moving  hurriedly  through  the 
orange  grove;  she  must  be  led  quietly  to  the  tender 
— that  is,  if  it  were  not  already  too  late.  His  en 
tire  effort  to  preserve  her  had  been  a  series  of  blun 
ders,  each  one  of  which  might  well  have  proved 
fatal,  and  now,  together,  perhaps  had. 

He  mounted  to  the  porch  and  entered  the  hall. 
The  light  flowed  undisturbed  from  the  room  on  the 
right;  and,  in  its  thin  wash,  he  saw  that  Iscah  Nich 
olas  had  disappeared  from  the  lower  steps.  Imme 
diately,  however,  and  from  higher  up,  he  heard 

[108] 


WILD    ORANGES 

a  shuffling,  and  could  just  make  out  a  form  heaving 
obscurely  in  the  gloom.  Nicholas  patently  was 
making  progress  toward  the  consummation  of  his 
one  fixed  idea;  but  Woolfolk  decided  that  at  pres 
ent  he  could  best  afford  to  ignore  him. 

He  entered  the  lighted  room,  and  found  Millie 
seated  and  gazing  in  dull  wonderment  at  the  figure 
on  the  floor. 

"I  must  tell  you  about  my  father,"  she  said  con 
versationally.  "You  know,  in  Virginia,  the  women 
tied  an  apron  to  his  door  because  he  would  not  go 
to  war,  and  for  years  that  preyed  on  his  mind,  until 
he  was  afraid  of  the  slightest  thing.  He  was  with 
out  a  particle  of  strength — just  to  watch  the  sun 
cross  the  sky  wearied  him,  and  the  smallest  disagree 
ment  upset  him  for  a  week." 

She  stopped,  lost  in  amazement  at  what  she  con 
templated,  what  was  to  follow. 

"Then  Nicholas But  that  isn't  important. 

I  was  to  meet  a  man — we  were  going  away  together, 
to  some  place  where  it  would  be  peaceful.  We  were 
to  sail  there.  He  said  at  eight  o'clock.  Well,  at 
seven  Nicholas  was  in  the  kitchen.  I  got  father  into 
his  very  heaviest  coat,  and  laid  out  a  muffler  and  his 
gloves,  then  sat  and  waited.  I  didn't  need  any 
thing  extra,  my  heart  was  quite  warm.  Then 
father  asked  why  I  had  changed  his  coat — if  I'd 
told  him,  he  would  have  died  of  fright — he  said 
he  was  too  hot,  and  he  fretted  and  worried.  Nich 
olas  heard  him,  and  he  wanted  to  know  why  I  had 

[109] 


WILD    ORANGES 

put  on  father's  winter  coat.  He  found  the  muffler 
and  gloves  ready  and  got  suspicious. 

"He  stayed  in  the  hall,  crying  a  little — Nich 
olas  cried  right  often — while  I  sat  with  father  and 
tried  to  think  of  some  excuse  to  get  away.  At  last 
I  had  to  go — for  an  orange,  I  said — but  Nich 
olas  wouldn't  believe  it.  He  pushed  me  back  and 
told  me  I  was  going  out  to  the  other. 

"  'Nicholas,  '  I  said,  'don't  be  silly;  nobody 
would  come  away  from  a  boat  on  a  night  like  this. 
Besides,  he's  gone  away.'  We  had  that  last  made 
up.  But  he  pushed  me  back  again.  Then  I  heard 
father  move  behind  us,  and  I  thought — he's  going 
to  die  of  fright  right  now.  But  father's  footsteps 
came  on  across  the  floor  and  up  to  my  side. 

"  'Don't  do  that,  Nicholas,'  he  told  him;  'take 
your  hand  from  my  daughter. '  He  swayed  a  little, 
his  lips  shook,  but  he  stood  facing  him.  It  was 
father!"  Her  voice  died  away,  and  she  was  silent 
for  a  moment,  gazing  at  the  vision  of  that  unsus 
pected  and  surprising  courage.  "Of  course  Nich 
olas  killed  him,"  she  added.  "He  twisted  him 
away  and  father  died.  That  didn't  matter,"  she 
told  Woolfolk;  "but  the  other  was  terribly  important, 
anyone  can  see  that." 

John  Woolfolk  listened  intently,  but  there  was 
no  sound  from  without.  Then,  with  every  appear 
ance  of  leisure,  he  rolled  and  lighted  a  cigarette. 

"Splendid!"  he  said  of  her  recital;  "and  I  don't 
doubt  you're  right  about  the  important  thing."  He 

[110] 


WILD    ORANGES 

moved  toward  her,  holding  out  his  hand.  "Splen 
did  !  But  we  must  go  on — the  man  is  waiting  for 
you." 

"It's  too  late,"  she  responded  indifferently.  She 
redirected  her  thoughts  to  her  parent's  enthralling 
end.  "Do  you  think  a  man  as  brave  as  that  should 
lie  on  the  floor?"  she  demanded.  "A  flag,"  she 
added  obscurely,  considering  an  appropriate  cover 
ing  for  the  still  form. 

"No,  not  on  the  floor,"  Woolfolk  instantly  re 
sponded.  He  bent  and,  lifting  the  body  of  Lich- 
field  Stope,  carried  it  into  the  hall,  where,  relieved 
at  the  opportunity  to  dispose  of  his  burden,  he  left 
it  in  an  obscure  corner. 

Iscah  Nicholas  was  stirring  again.  John  Wool- 
folk  waited,  gazing  up  the  stair,  but  the  other  pro 
gressed  no  more  than  a  step.  Then  he  returned  to 
Millie. 

"Come,"  he  said.  "No  time  to  lose."  He  took 
her  arm  and  exerted  a  gentle  pressure  toward  the 
door. 

"I  explained  that  it  was  too  late,"  she  reiterated, 
evading  him.  "Father  really  lived,  but  I  died. 
' Swamp  of  souls,'  "  she  added  in  a  lower  voice. 
"Someone  said  that,  and  it's  true;  it  happened  to 


me." 


"The  man  waiting  for  you  will  be  worried,"  he 
suggested.  "He  depends  absolutely  on  your  com 
ing." 

"Nice  man.  Something  had  happened  to  him  too. 
[Ill] 


WILD    ORANGES 

He  caught  a  rockfish  and  Nicholas  boiled  it  in  milk 
for  our  breakfast."  At  the  mention  of  Iscah  Nich 
olas  a  slight  shiver  passed  over  her.  This  was 
what  Woolfolk  hoped  for — a  return  of  her  normal 
revulsion  from  her  surroundings,  from  the  past. 

"Nicholas,"  he  said  sharply,  contradicted  by  a 
faint  dragging  from  the  stair,  "is  dead." 

"If  you  could  only  assure  me  of  that,"  she  replied 
wistfully.  "If  I  could  be  certain  that  he  wasn't  in 
the  next  shadow  I'd  go  gladly.  Any  other  way  it 
would  be  useless."  She  laid  her  hand  over  her 

heart.     "I    must    get    him   out   of    here My 

father  did.  His  lips  trembled  a  little,  but  he  said 
quite  clearly:  'Don't  do  that.  Don't  touch  my 
daughter.'  " 

"Your  father  was  a  singularly  brave  man,"  he 
assured  her,  rebelling  against  the  leaden  monotony 
of  speech  that  had  fallen  upon  them.  "Your 
mother  too  was  brave,"  he  temporized.  He  could, 
he  decided,  wait  no  longer.  She  must,  if  necessary, 
be  carried  away  forcibly.  It  was  a  desperate  chance 
— the  least  pressure  might  result  in  a  permanent, 
jangling  discord.  Her  waist,  torn,  he  saw,  upon 
her  pallid  shoulder,  was  an  insufficient  covering 
against  the  wind  and  night.  Looking  about  he  dis 
covered  the  muffler,  laid  out  for  her  father, 
crumpled  on  the  floor;  and,  with  an  arm  about  her, 
folded  it  over  her  throat  and  breast. 

"Now  we're  away,"  he  declared  in  a  forced  light 
ness. 

1112] 


WILD    ORANGES 

She  resisted  him  for  a  moment,  and  then  col 
lapsed  into  his  support. 

John  Woolfolk  half  led,  half  carried  her  into  the 
hall.  His  gaze  searched  the  obscurity  of  the  stair; 
it  was  empty;  but  from  above  came  the  sound  of  a 
heavy,  dragging  step. 


[113] 


XIV 


OUTSIDE  she  cowered  pitifully  from  the 
violent  blast  of  the  wind,  the  boundless, 
stirred  space.  They -made  their  way  about 
the  corner  of  the  house,  leaving  behind  the  pale, 
glimmering  rectangle  of  the  lighted  window.  In 
the  thicket  Woolfolk  was  forced  to  proceed  more 
slowly.  Millie  stumbled  weakly  over  the  rough 
way,  apparently  at  the  point  of  slipping  to  the 
ground.  He  felt  a  supreme  relief  when  the  cool 
sweep  of  the  sea  opened  before  him  and  Halvard 
emerged  from  the  gloom. 

He  halted  for  a  moment,  with  his  arm  about 
Millie's  shoulders,  facing  his  man.  Even  in  the 
dark  he  was  conscious  of  Poul  Halvard's  stalwart 
being,  of  his  rocklike  integrity. 

"I  was  delayed,"  he  said  finally,  amazed  at  the 
inadequacy  of  his  words  to  express  the  pressure  of 
the  past  hours.  Had  they  been  two  or  four?  He 
had  been  totally  unconscious  of  the  passage  of  ac 
tual  time.  In  the  dark  house  behind  the  orange 
grove  he  had  lived  through  tormented  ages,  de 
scended  into  depths  beyond  the  measured  standard 
of  Greenwich.  Halvard  said: 

"Yes,  sir." 

[The  sound  of  a  blundering  progress  rose  from  the 
[114] 


WILD    ORANGES 

path  behind  them,  the  breaking  of  branches  and  the 
slipping  of  a  heavy  tread  on  the  water-soaked 
ground.  John  Woolfolk,  with  an  oath,  realized 
that  it  was  Nicholas,  still  animated  by  his  fixed, 
murderous  idea.  Millie  Stope  recognized  the  sound, 
too,  for  she  trembled  violently  on  his  arm.  He 
knew  that  she  could  support  no  more  violence,  and 
he  turned  to  the  dim,  square-set  figure  before  him. 

"Halvard,  it's  that  fellow  Nicholas.  He's  in 
sane — has  a  knife.  Will  you  stop  him  while  I  get 
Miss  Stope  into  the  tender?  She's  pretty  well 
through."  He  laid  his  hand  on  the  other's  shoulder 
as  he  started  immediately  forward.  "I  shall  have 
to  go  on,  Halvard,  if  anything  unfortunate  occurs," 
he  said  in -a  different  voice. 

The  sailor  made  no  reply;  but  as  Woolfolk  urged 
Millie  out  over  the  wharf  he  saw  Halvard  throw 
himself  upon  a  dark  bulk  that  broke  from  the  wood. 

The  tender  was  made  fast  fore  and  aft;  and,  get 
ting  down  into  the  uneasy  boat,  Woolfolk  reached 
up  and  lifted  Millie  bodily  to  his  side.  She  dropped 
in  a  still,  white  heap  on  the  bottom.  He  unfastened 
the  painter  and  stood  holding  the  tender  close  to 
the  wharf,  with  his  head  above  its  platform,  strain 
ing  his  gaze  in  the  direction  of  the  obscure  struggle 
on  land. 

He  could  see  nothing,  and  heard  only  an  occa 
sional  trampling  of  the  underbrush.  It  was  diffi 
cult  to  remain  detached,  give  no  assistance,  while 
Halvard  encountered  Iscah  Nicholas.  Yet  with 

[115] 


WILD    ORANGES 

Millie  in  a  semi-collapse,  and  the  bare  possibility 
of  Nicholas'  knifing  them  both,  he  felt  that  this  was 
his  only  course.  Halvard  was  an  unusually  pow 
erful,  active  man,  and  the  other  must  have  suf 
fered  from  the  stress  of  his  long  conflict  in  the 
hall. 

The  thing  terminated  speedily.  There  was  the 
sound  of  a  heavy  fall,  a  diminishing  thrashing  in 
the  saw  grass,  and  silence.  An  indistinguishable 
form  advanced  over,  the  wharf,  and  Woolfolk  pre 
pared  to  shove  the  tender  free.  But  it  was  Poul 
Halvard.  He  got  down,  Woolfolk  thought,  clum 
sily,  and  mechanically  assumed  his  place  at  the  oars. 
Woolfolk  sat  aft,  with  an  arm  about  Millie  Stope. 
The  sailor  said  fretfully: 

"I  stopped  him.  He  was  all  pumped  out. 
Missed  his  hand  at  first — the  dark — a  scratch." 

He  rested  on  the  oars,  fingering  his  shoulder. 
The  tender  swung  dangerously  near  the  corrugated 
rock  of  the  shore,  and  Woolfolk  sharply  directed: 
"Keep  way  on  her." 

"Yes,  sir,"  Halvard  replied,  once  more  swinging 
into  his  short,  efficient  stroke.  It  was,  however,  less 
sure  than  usual;  an  oar  missed  its  hold  and  skit 
tered  impotently  over  the  water,  drenching  Woolfolk 
with  a  brief,  cold  spray.  Again  the  bow  of  the  ten 
der  dipped  into  the  point  of  land  they  were  round 
ing,  and  John  Woolfolk  spoke  more  abruptly  than 
before. 

He  was  seriously  alarmed  about  Millie.  Her 
[116] 


WILD    ORANGES 

face  was  apathetic,  almost  blank,  and  her  arms 
hung  across  his  knees  with  no  more  response  than  a 
doll's.  He  wondered  desperately  if,  as  she  had 
said,  her  spirit  had  died ;  if  the  Millie  Stope  that  had 
moved  him  so  swiftly  and  tragically  from  his  long 
indifference,  his  aversion  to  life,  had  gone,  leaving 
him  more  hoplessly  alone  than  before.  The  sudden 
extinction  of  Ellen's  life  had  been  more  supportable 
than  Millie's  crouching  dumbly  at  his  feet.  His 
arm  unconsciously  tightened  about  her,  and  she 
gazed  up  with  a  momentary,  questioning  flicker  of 
her  wide-opened  eyes.  He  repeated  her  name  in  a 
deep  whisper,  but  her  head  fell  forward  loosely, 
and  left  him  in  racking  doubt. 

Now  he  could  see  the  shortly  swaying  riding 
light  of  the  Gar.  Halvard  was  propelling  them 
vigorously  but  erratically  forward.  At  times  he  re- 
muttered  his  declarations  about  the  encounter  with 
Nicholas.  The  stray  words  reached  Woolfolk: 

"Stopped  him — the  cursed  dark — a  scratch." 

He  brought  the  tender  awkwardly  alongside  the 
ketch,  with  a  grinding  shock,  and  held  the  boats 
together  while  John  Woolfolk  shifted  Millie  to  the 
deck.  Woolfolk  took  her  immediately  into  the 
cabin ;  where,  lighting  a  swinging  lamp,  he  placed 
her  on  one  of  the  prepared  berths  and  endeavored  to 
wrap  her  in  a  'blanket.  But,  in  a  shuddering  access 
of  fear,  she  rose  with  outheld  palms. 

"Nicholas!"  she  cried  shrilly.  "There— at  the 
door!" 

[117] 


WILD    ORANGES 

He  sat  beside  her,  restraining  her  convulsive 
effort  to  cower  in  a  far,  dark  angle  of  the  cabin. 

"Nonsense!"  he  told  her  brusquely.  "You  are 
on  the  Gar.  You  are  safe.  In  an  hour  you  will 
be  in  a  new  world." 

"With  John  Woolfolk?" 

"I  am  John  Woolfolk." 

"But  he— you— left  me." 

"I  am  here,"  he  insisted  with  a  tightening  of  his 
heart.  He  rose,  animated  by  an  overwhelming 
necessity  to  get  the  ketch  under  way,  to  leave  at 
once,  for  ever,  the  invisible  shore  of  the  bay.  He 
gently  folded  her  again  in  the  blanket,  but  she  re 
sisted  him.  "I'd  rather  stay  up,"  she  said  with  a 
sudden  lucidity.  "It's  nice  here;  I  wanted  to  come 
before,  but  he  wouldn't  let  me." 

A  glimmer  of  hope  swept  over  him  as  he  mounted 
swiftly  to  the  deck.  "Get  up  the  anchors,"  he 
called;  "reef  down  the  jigger  and  put  on  a  handful 
of  jib." 

There  was  no  immediate  response,  and  he  peered 
over  the  obscured  deck  in  search  of  Halvard.  The 
man  rose  slowly  from  a  sitting  posture  by  the  main 
boom.  "Very  good,  sir,"  he  replied  in  a  forced 
tone. 

He  disappeared  forward,  while  Woolfolk,  shut 
ting  the  cabin  door  on  the  confusing  illumination 
within,  lighted  the  binnacle  lamp,  bent  over  the  en 
gine,  swiftly  making  connections  and  adjustments, 
and  cranked  the  wheel  with  a  sharp,  expert  turn. 

[118] 


WILD    ORANGES 

The  explosions  settled  into  a  dull,  regular  succes 
sion,  and  he  coupled  the  propeller  and  slowly  man 
euvered  the  ketch  up  over  the  anchors,  reducing  the 
strain  on  the  hawsers  and  allowing  Halvard  to  get 
in  the  slack.  He  waited  impatiently  for  the  sail 
or's  cry  of  all  clear,  and  demanded  the  cause  of  the 
delay. 

"The  bight  slipped,"  the  other  called  in  a  muf 
fled,  angry  voice.  "One's  clear  now,"  he  added. 
"Bring  her  up  again."  The  ketch  forged  ahead, 
but  the  wait  was  longer  than  before.  "Caught," 
Halvard's  voice  drifted  thinly  aft;  "coral  ledge." 
Woolfolk  held  the  Gar  stationary  until  the  sailor 
cried  weakly:  "Anchor's  apeak." 

They  moved  inperceptibly  through  the  dark,  into 
the  greater  force  of  the  wind  beyond  the  point. 
The  dull  roar  of  the  breaking  surf  ahead  grew 
louder.  Halvard  should  have  had  the  jib  up  and 
been  aft  at  the  jigger,  but  he  failed  to  appear. 
John  Woolfolk  wondered,  in  a  mounting  impa 
tience,  what  was  the  matter  with  the  man.  Finally 
an  obscure  form  passed  him  and  hung  over  the 
housed  sail,  stripping  its  cover  and  removing  the 
stops.  The  sudden  thought  of  a  disconcerting  pos 
sibility  banished  Woolf oik's  annoyance.  "Hal 
vard,"  he  demanded,  "did  Nicholas  knife  you?" 

"A  scratch,"  the  other  stubbornly  reiterated.  "I'll 
tie  it  up  later.  No  time  now — I  stopped  him  per 
manent." 

The  jigger,  reefed  to  a  mere  irregular  patch,  rose 
[119] 


WILD    ORANGES 

with  a  jerk,  and  the  ketch  rapidly  left  the  protection 
of  the  shore.  She  dipped  sharply  and,  flattened 
over  by  a  violent  ball  of  wind,  buried  her  rail  in  the 
black,  swinging  water,  and  there  was  a  small  crash 
of  breaking  china  from  within.  The  wind  appeared 
to  sweep  high  up  in  empty  space  and  occasion 
ally  descend  to  deal  the  yacht  a  staggering  blow. 
The  bar,  directly  ahead — as  Halvard  had  earlier 
pointed  out — was  now  covered  with  the  smother  of 
a  lowering  tide.  The  pass,  the  other  had  dis 
covered,  too,  had  filled.  It  was  charted  at  four  feet, 
the  Gar  drew  a  full  three,  and  Woolfolk  knew  that 
there  must  be  no  error,  no  uncertainty,  in  running 
out. 

Halvard  was  so  long  in  stowing  away  the  jigger 
shears  that  Woolfolk  turned  to  make  sure  that  the 
sailor  had  not  been  swept  from  the  deck.  The 
"scratch,"  he  was  certain,  was  deeper  than  the  other 
admitted.  When  they  were  safely  at  sea  he  would 
insist  upon  an  examination. 

The  subject  of  this  consideration  fell  rather  than 
stepped  into  the  cockpit,  and  stood  rocked  by  the 
motion  of  the  swells,  clinging  to  the  cabin's  edge. 
Woolfolk  shifted  the  engine  to  its  highest  speed, 
and  they  were  driving  through  the  tempestuous  dark 
on  to  the  bar.  He  was  now  confronted  by  the 
necessity  for  an  immediate  decision.  Halvard  or 
himself  would  have  to  stand  forward,  clinging  pre 
cariously  to  a  stay,  and  repeatedly  sound  the  depth 
of  the  shallowing  water  as  they  felt  their  way  out 

[120] 


WILD    ORANGES 

to  sea.  He  gazed  anxiously  at  the  dark  bulk  before 
him,  and  saw  that  the  sailor  had  lost  his  staunch 
ness  of  outline,  his  aspect  of  invincible  determin 
ation. 

"Halvard,"  he  demanded  again  sharply,  "this 
is  no  time  for  pretense.  How  are  you?" 

"All  right,"  the  other  repeated  desperately, 
through  clenched  teeth.  "I've — I've  taken  knives 
from  men  before — on  the  docks  at  Stockholm.  I 
missed  his  hand  at  first — it  was  the  night." 

The  cabin  door  swung  open,  and  a  sudden  lurch 
flung  Millie  Stope  against  the  wheel.  Woolfolk^ 
caught  and  held  her  until  the  wave  rolled  by.  She 
was  stark  with  terror,  and  held  abjectly  to  the  rail 
while  the  next  swell  lifted  them  upward.  He 
attempted  to  urge  her  back  to  the  protection  of  the 
cabin,  but  she  resisted  with  such  a  convulsive  de 
termination  that  he  relinquished  the  effort  and  en 
veloped  her  in  his  glistening  oilskin. 

This  had  consumed  a  perilous  amount  of  time; 
and,  swiftly  decisive,  he  commanded  Halvard  to 
take  the  wheel.  He  swung  himself  to  the  deck  and 
secured  the  long  sounding  pole.  He  could  see 
ahead  on  either  side  the  dim  white  bars  forming 
and  dissolving,  and  called  to  the  man  at  the  wheel: 

"Mark  the  breakers!     Fetch  her  between." 

On  the  bow,  leaning  out  over  the  surging  tide,  he 
drove  the  sounding  pole  forward  and  down,  but  it 
floated  back  free.  They  were  not  yet  on  the  bar. 
The  ketch  heeled  until  the  black  plain  of  water 

[121] 


WILD    ORANGES 

rose  above  his  knees,  driving  at  him  with  a  deceit 
ful  force,  sinking  back  slowly  as  the  yacht  straight 
ened  buoyantly.  He  again  sounded;  the  pole 
struck  bottom,  and  he  cried: 

"Five.11 

The  infuriated  beating  of  the  waves  on  the  ob 
struction  drawn  across  their  path  drowned  his  voice, 
and  he  shouted  the  mark  once  more.  Then  after 
another  sounding: 

"Four  and  three." 

The  yacht  fell  away  dangerously  before  a  heavy 
diagonal  blow;  she  hung  for  a  moment,  rolling  like 
a  log,  and  then  slowly  regained  her  way.  Wool- 
folk's  apprehension  increased.  It  would,  perhaps, 
have  been  better  if  they  had  delayed,  to  examine 
Halvard's  injury.  The  man  had  insisted  that  it 
was  of  no  moment,  and  John  Woolfolk  had  been 
driven  by  a  consuming  desire  to  leave  the  mias 
matic  shore.  He  swung  the  pole  forward  and 
cried: 

"Four  and  a  half." 

The  water  was  shoaling  rapidly.  The  breaking 
waves  on  the  port  and  starboard  swept  by  with 
lightning  rapidity.  The  ketch  veered  again, 
shipped  a  crushing  weight  of  water,  and  responded 
more  slowly  than  before  to  a  tardy  pressure  of  the 
rudder.  The  greatest  peril,  John  Woolfolk  knew, 
lay  directly  before  them.  He  realized  from  the  ac 
tion  of  the  ketch  that  Halvard  was  steering  uncer 
tainly,  and  that  at  any  moment  the  Gar  might 

[122] 


WILD    ORANGES 

strike  and  fall  off  too  far  for  recovery,  when  she 
could  not  live  in  the  pounding  surf. 

"Four  and  one,"  he  cried  hoarsely.  And  then 
immediately  after:  "Four." 

Chance  had  been  against  him  from  the  first,  he 
thought,  and  there  flashed  through  his  mind  the 
dark  panorama,  the  accumulating  disasters  of  the 
night.  A  negation  lay  upon  his  existence  that 
would  not  be  lifted.  It  had  followed  him  like  a 
sinister  shadow  for  years  to  this  obscure,  black 
smother  of  water,  to  the  Gar  reeling  crazily  for 
ward  under  an  impotent  hand.  The  yacht  was  be 
having  heroically;  no  other  ketch  could  have  lived 
so  long,  responded  so  gallantly  to  a  wavering  wheel. 

"Three  and  three,"  he  shouted  above  the  com 
bined  stridor  of  wind  and  sea. 

The  next  minute  would  see  their  safe  passage  or 
a  helpless  hulk  beating  to  pieces  on  the  bar,  with 
three  human  fragments  whirling  under  the  crushing 
masses  of  water,  floating,  perhaps,  with  the  dawn 
into  the  tranquillity  of  the  bay. 

"Three  and  a  half,"  he  cried  monotonously. 

The  Gar  trembled  like  a  wounded  and  dull  ani 
mal.  The  solid  seas  were  reaching  hungrily  over 
Woolfolk's  legs.  A  sudden  stolidity  possessed  him. 
He  thrust  the  pole  out  deliberately,  skillfully: 

"Three  and  a  quarter." 

A  lower  sounding  would  mean  the  end.  He 
paused  for  a  moment,  his  dripping  face  turned  to 
the  far  stars;  his  lips  moved  in  silent,  unformu- 

[123] 


WILD    ORANGES 

lated  aspirations — Halvard  and  himself,  in  the  sea 
that  had  been  their  home ;  but  Millie  was  so  fragile ! 
He  made  the  sounding  precisely,  between  the  heav 
ing  swells,  and  marked  the  pole  instantly  driven 
backward  by  their  swinging  flight. 

"Three  and  a  half."  His  voice  held  a  new,  un 
controllable  quiver.  He  sounded  again  imme 
diately:  "And  three-quarters." 

They  had  passed  the  bar. 


[124] 


XV 


A  GLADNESS  like  the  white  flare  of  burn 
ing  powder  swept  over  him,  and  then  he 
became  conscious  of  other,  minor  sensa 
tions — his  head  ached  intolerably  from  the  fall 
down  the  stair,  and  a  grinding  pain  shot  through 
his  shoulder,  lodging  in  his  torn  lower  arm  at  the 
slightest  movement.  He  slipped  the  sounding  pole 
into  its  loops  on  the  cabin  and  hastily  made  his  way 
aft  to  the  relief  of  Poul  Halvard. 

The  sailor  was  nowhere  visible;  but,  in  an  inter 
mittent,  reddish  light  that  faded  and  swelled  as  the 
cabin  door  swung  open  and  shut,  Woolfolk  saw  a 
white  figure  clinging  to  the  wheel — Millie. 

Instantly  his  hands  replaced  hers  on  the  spokes 
and,  as  if  with  a  palpable  sigh  of  relief,  the  Gar 
steadied  to  her  course.  Millie  Stope  clung  to  the 
deck  rail,  sobbing  with  exhaustion. 

"He's — he's  dead!"  she  exclaimed,  between  her 
racking  inspirations.  She  pointed  to  the  floor  of 
the  cockpit,  and  there,  sliding  grotesquely  with  the 
motion  of  the  seaway,  was  Poul  Halvard.  An  arm 
was  flung  out,  as  if  in  ward  against  the  ketch's  side, 
but  it  crumpled,  the  body  hit  heavily,  a  hand  seemed 

[125] 


WILD    ORANGES 

to  clutch  at  the  boards  it  had  so  often  and 
thoroughly  swabbed;  but  without  avail.  The  face 
momentarily  turned  upward;  it  was  haggard  be 
yond  expression,  and  bore  stamped  upon  it,  in  lines 
that  resembled  those  of  old  age,  the  agonized 
struggle  against  the  inevitable  last  treachery  of  life. 

"When "  John  Woolfolk  stopped  in  sheer, 

leaden  amazement. 

"Just  when  you  called  'Three  and  a  quarter.' 
Before  that  he  had  fallen  on  his  knees.  He 
begged  me  to  help  him  hold  the  wheel.  He  said 
you'd  be  lost  if  I  didn't.  He  talked  all  the  time 
about  keeping  her  head  up  and  up.  I  helped  him. 
Your  voice  came  back  years  apart.  At  the  last  he 
was  on  the  floor,  holding  the  bottom  of  the  wheel. 
He  told  me  to  keep  it  steady,  dead  ahead.  His 
voice  grew  so  weak  that  I  couldn't  hear;  and  then 
all  at  once  he  slipped  away.  I — I  held  on — called 
to  you.  But  against  the  wind " 

He  braced  his  knee  against  the  wheel  and, 
leaning  out,  found  the  jigger  sheet  and  flattened  the 
reefed  sail;  he  turned  to  where  the  jib  sheet  led 
after,  and  then  swung  the  ketch  about.  The  yacht 
rode  smoothly,  slipping  forward  over  the  long,  even 
ground  swell,  and  he  turned  with  immeasurable 
emotion  to  the  woman  beside  him. 

The  light  from  the  cabin  flooded  out  over  her 
face,  and  he  saw  that,  miraculously,  the  fear  had 
gone.  Her  countenance  was  drawn  with  weariness 
and  the  hideous  strain  of  the  past  minutes,  but  her 

[126] 


WILD    ORANGES 

gaze  squarely  met  the  night  and  sea.  Her  chin  was 
lifted,  its  graceful  line  firm,  and  her  mouth  was  in 
repose.  She  had,  as  he  had  recognized  she  alone 
must,  conquered  the  legacy  of  Lichfield  Stope; 
while  he,  John  Woolfolk,  and  Halvard,  had  put 
Nicholas  out  of  her  life.  She  was  free. 

"If    you    could    go   below "    he    suggested. 

"In  the  morning,  with  this  wind,  we'll  be  at  anchor 
under  a  fringe  of  palms,  in  water  like  a  blue  silk 
counterpane." 

"I  think  I  could  now,  with  you,"  she  replied. 
She  pressed  her  lips,  salt  and  enthralling,  against 
his  face,  and  made  her  way  into  the  cabin.  He 
locked  the  wheel  momentarily  and,  following, 
ned  her  in  the  blankets,  on  the  new  sheets  pre 
pared  for  her  coming.  Then,  putting  out  the  light, 
he  hut  the  cabin  door  and  returned  to  the  wheel. 

The  body  of  Poul  Halvard  struck  his  feet  and 
rested  there.  A  good  man,  born  by  the  sea,  who 
had  known  its  every  expression ;  with  a  faithful  and 
simple  heart,  as  such  men  occasionally  had. 

The  diminished  wind  swept  in  a  clear  diapason 
through  the  pellucid  sky;  the  resplendent  sea 
reached  vast  and  magnetic  to  its  invisible  horizon. 
A  sudden  distaste  seized  John  Woolfolk  for  the 
dragging  death  ceremonials  of  land.  Halvard  had 
known  the  shore  mostly  as  a  turbulent  and  unclean 
strip  that  had  finally  brought  about  his  end. 

He  leaned  forward  and  found  beyond  any  last 
doubt  that  the  other  was  dead;  a  black,  clotted  sur- 

[127] 


WILD    ORANGES 

face  adhered  to  the  wound  which  his  pride,  his 
invincible  determination,  had  driven  him  to  dt 

In  the   space  beneath  the   afterdeck  Woolf 
found   a   spare   folded   anchor   for  the   tender,    a 
length  of  rope;  and  he  slowly  completed  the  pr 
arations  for  his  purpose.     He  lifted  the  body 
the  narrow  deck  outside  the  rail,  and,  in  a  long  dip, 
the  waves  carried  it  smoothly  and  soundlessly  aw  y, 
John  Woolf  oik  said : 

"'  .  .  .  Commit  his  body  to  the  deep,  look---; 
for   the    general    resurrection  .  .  .  through  .  .  . 
Christ.'  " 

Then,  upright  and  motionless  at  the  wheel,  with 
the  wan  radiance  of  the  binnacle  lamp  floating  up 
over  his  hollow  cheeks  and  set  gaze,  he  held  the 
ketch  southward  through  the  night. 


[128] 


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